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LETTERS FROM 
LABRADOR 

BY 

GEORGE FRANCIS DURGIN 



Printed for private distribution 

in memory of a beloved son, 

by his mother 



RUMFORD PRINTING COMPANY 
Concord, New Hampshire ... 1 908 






SliBHARY of OON4vkES3| 
Two Copies jietH- . 
APR 3 1908 

•jop>ri«crH !inlfy 



Copyright 

BY 

Martha E. Durgin 
1908. 



George Jfrancwi Bursm 

April 25, 1858 

Concord, New Hampshire 

May 27, 1905 



CONTENTS. 

Paqe. 

Preface 7 

Letter I 11 

Letter H 35 

Letter III 43 

Letter IV 67 

Letter V 91 



PREFACE. 

The five letters composing this book were originally- 
printed in the Concord Daily Monitor during the years 
1903 and 1904. The first two were written on the jour- 
ney, and bear the dates: St. Anthony, N. E. Coast 
Newfoundland, July 20, 1903 ; and Battle Harbor, Lab- 
rador, August 12, 1903; and were printed in the Monitor 
of August 22 and September 1 of that year. The last three 
were completed at home and were printed in the issues 
of the Monitor: November 34, 1903; March 19, 1904; 
and April 28, 1904. The articles attracted immediate 
attention and favorable comment. Mr. Durgin was re- 
peatedly urged to have them published in permanent 
form, but a modest distrust of his own powers always 
led him to deny these requests ; and his last long Ulness, 
which followed soon after the second journey, pre- 
vented him from completing a final letter, which had 
been partially written. 

These sketches are now given to his friends in re- 
sponse to continued desires. 

No part of the world is less known to the reading 
public than Labrador. Although comparatively near 
our coast, it has been almost unvisited save by fisher- 
men, and scarcely anytliing has been printed about the 
region except the tales by Norman Duncan and the re- 
ports of Dr. Grenfell, whose noble mission is now 
awakening the interest of benevolent people both in 



8 Preface. 

England and in America. The fact that so little can be 
found relating to the country would be a sufficient ex- 
cuse for re-printing Mr. Durgin's letters; but it is 
believed that the articles themselves have value not 
only on account of the freshness of their matter, but 
the charm of their style. Although vn-itten vrithout 
thought of permanent publication and with no effort at 
orderly arrangement, the reader cannot fail to be struck 
by the vividness of the descriptions and the aptness of 
the language in these compositions. There are occa- 
sional sentences which haunt the mind like music. Mr. 
Durgin inherited from both parents a passionate love of 
Nature and a sensitive appreciation of its beauties ; and 
he was endowed with the rarer gift of power to paint 
the scenes that he loved so weU in a way to make en- 
during mental pictures for others. 

F, M. A. 



LETTERS FROM LABRADOR. 



LETTERS FROM LABRADOR 



Thursday evening, June 18, 1903, the Red 
Cross steamer Rosalind, plying between New 
York, Halifax and St. John's, Newfoundland, 
passed through the Narrows and docked in fog 
and rain — a combination of weather not unusual 
at St. John's during the month of June. We 
left Boston by the Plant line, Saturday, June 
13, and met the Rosalind at Halifax, sailing 
thence Tuesday noon, the 16th. This was the 
beginning of a trip that is an evolution of sev- 
eral previous outings in Newfoundland and one, 
last summer, to the Labrador. 

Four summers ago we took a short excursion 
to St. John 's, going from Boston to Hawkesbury, 
thence through the Bras d'Or lakes to North Sid- 
ney, where we embarked on the yacht-like 
steamer Bruce of the Reid-Newfoundland Com- 
pany and met the trans-island train at Port aux 
Basques. 

For years I had cherished a desire to visit 
Terra Nova, as Newfoundland, England's old- 
est colony, was originally named. I can scarcely 
tell from what this desire sprang, for my knowl- 



12 Letters from Labrador 

edge of the island and prevailing conditions was 
vague only — a dream of high, rocky shores and 
rivers that flowed from an unexplored interior. 
Ways of reaching its fog-bound limits were few 
and difficult to learn about; but in 1897 the 
narrow-gauge railroad from Port aux Basques 
to St. John's was completed, and its promoters 
began to tell the world how to avail themselves 
of its accommodations. 

On a bright morning four years ago, as we 
left our coffee, rolls and marmalade in the cozy 
salon of the Bruce for a view of the approach 
to Port aux Basques, an agreeable man came up 
to us and kindly offered to indicate the points 
of interest as we steamed towards the cliffs that 
hold the little harbor. At the dock our luggage 
was quickly passed by the customs' officers, and 
we found seats on the better side reserved in the 
miniature Pullman car. 

Then began a day I shall never forget. Our 
acquaintance proved to be Mr. H. A. Morine, 
general passenger agent of the Reid-Newfound- 
land Company, Nothing of interest was al- 
lowed to escape our notice. We passed from 
rocky, barren shores to bowers of forest verdure, 
with glimpses here and there through openings, 
of distant bays, sparkling in the sunlight. 



Letters from Labrador 13 

From hills on either side flowed flashing 
streams; some, caught in long log troughs, 
served to replenish the locomotive boiler. Water 
seemed everjr^here, — ^foaming rivers, little 
ponds set among the hills; and the train 
whirled past great lakes, some fifty or more miles 
long. 

The subject of shooting and fishing was not 
allowed to flag, and I listened to our mentor's 
tales of mighty droves of caribou that traverse 
the islands in the fall, and descriptions of rivers 
where pools are alive with the kingly salmon. 
Not to leave us without proof of the fishing, at 
one point where the train stopped to take water, 
a trout rod was produced and we caught trout, 
dropping our line from the car platform. 

That memorable ride crossing the great bar- 
rens where we saw caribou from the car win- 
dows ended hesitation about a future trip and 
whetted our appetite for a dip into this sports- 
man's paradise I had fostered for years. There- 
fore plans were made then and there for an- 
other year. We were permitted to carry them 
out, and pitched our first camp July third, 
1900, on Robinson's River, on the southwest 
coast, flowing into Bay St. George. 

Here we fished for salmon three weeks with 



14 Letters from Labrador 

great success and were the only sportsmen on 
the river, for the knowledge that the "sport of 
kings" might here be had, without money and 
without price, had not reached the outer world 
to the extent of bringing anglers. At the end of 
three weeks we broke camp, moving about three 
hundred miles up the road to a region of river 
and lake called Terra Nova. Our head guide, 
John Stroud, who has led the steps of many 
titled English sportsmen through these wilds, 
spoke of it as " God 's country, ' ' and so it proved. 
"We camped at the foot of the lake where the 
water rushed through a narrow "tickle" to 
make the river. Fifty feet from our tents we 
could take trout in any quantity we wished. 

When the wind was down the lake, as it gen- 
erally was, it wafted to our nostrils the rarely 
delicate perfume of the arethusa, an orchid grow- 
ing here in lavish abundance ; the air was heavy 
with its sweetness, but we were never surfeited. 
On the marshes stretching far beyond the limits 
of the human eye, after the height of land above 
the lake was reached, I found five other beauti- 
ful orchids. The delicate pink twin-flower or 
Linnoea trailed over the moss of the forest in 
such prodigal profusion that its heavy odor 
cloyed. All day long the hermit thrushes sang 



Letters from Labrador 15 

in the dim woods ; at intervals the strange insane 
laugh of the loon echoed across the lake. 

Each evening at sunset the wild Canada geese 
came in flocks to a near by island to fill their 
crops with gravel. Their approach was heralded 
by a distant chorus of "honks" that grew as 
they came nearer, while, to my ears, it seemed a 
weird elfin band playing behind the hills. At 
evening the great white gulls winged their even 
flight in from the distant sea where they fish all 
day, to feed their nestlings swung on a rock in 
some dark tarn high on the marshes. The 
gulls always breed in the interior from twenty- 
five to sixty or more miles from the ocean, con- 
sequently they fly from fifty to one hundred and 
twenty miles a day to catch the fish and return 
with it to feed their young. 

We took trips up two rivers that flow into 
Terra Nova Lake and at sunset and early morn- 
ing watched quietly to see the caribou come to 
drink. They always came; many were huge 
beasts (Newfoundland caribou are the largest 
known) with splendid spreading horns, — ^in the 
velvet, however, at that season, so unfit to mount. 
We were contented with shots from the camera 
only. 

The next year we repeated the plans of the 



16 Letters from Labrador 

one before. We found the streams about Bay 
St. George alive with anglers and the charm was 
gone. It was just as before at our Terra Nova, 
but we were disappointed about the salmon. 
One of our men had been on the Labrador coast 
a great deal and told marvelous tales of the size 
and abundance of salmon in the Far North, so 
we returned in 1902, equipped for a Labrador 
summer. 

We left St. John's June 26 on the Virginia 
Lake, a powerful steamer, built to battle with 
the ice. She is owned by the Reids and subsi- 
dized by the government to carry mails to the 
twenty or more thousand fishermen who go North 
for the cod-fishing each summer; and to bring 
back reports of the catch to the merchants of 
St. John's. We carried tents and canoes, for 
there are no hotels or stopping places fit for an 
American on the Labrador, except the Hudson 
Bay Company's Posts, where the infrequent 
tourist is cordially welcomed, but only as an un- 
expected guest, never being allowed to pay for 
entertainment. Our objective point was Cart- 
wright, Sandwich Bay, several hundred miles 
north of Newfoundland. 

Our reception by Mr, Swaffield, master of 
the Post at Cartwright, and his good wife, was 



Letters from Labrador 17 

cordial. Their loneliness makes a visitor wel- 
come. Mr. SwaflQeld has been in the Hudson Bay- 
Company's service since a boy, at Abitibi in the 
far northern Canadian wilds and later at Da- 
vis's Inlet in the very far north of Labrador. 

The Virginia Lake would not have put in at 
Cartwright on her northern trip except under 
orders to land us, which was probably indirectly 
the means of saving the life of the little son of 
Mr. Swaffield. A few days earlier the child, 
while watc"hing the feeding of the savage Eski- 
mo dogs that the Post keeps for the sledges in 
the winter, fell on the ground, when the pack, 
true to its instincts, sprang upon the boy, biting- 
and tearing him frightfully. The mother ran 
to the rescue and beat some of the brutes away 
and the father quickly followed with his rifle, 
and shot several that would not quit their prey. 
The distracted parents had been doing every- 
thing in their power, night and day, to relieve 
and save the child, but the wounds were in bad 
condition and death seemed the only result. 

On our ship was Dr. Simpson and a nurse of 
the ' ' Royal National Mission for Deep Sea Fish- 
ermen," returning from England to Indian 
Harbor hospital farther north. The doctor had 
the child placed in a box lined with furs and 



18 Letters from Labrador 

soft blankets, and towed to the waiting ship, the 
poor mother sobbing in the doorway of the Post 
dwelling. The steam winches clanked the an- 
chor from its bed, the whistle blew, dense smoke 
poured from the stack and the black steamer 
rounded the point to the open sea, and disap- 
peared. Then the heart-broken mother, almost 
alone in this cruel, bitter solitude, showed her 
stoicism. She turned to us as if nothing had 
happened and bent all her energies to minister- 
ing to our comfort. 

On the second day after our arrival, wind per- 
mitting, one of the Company's schooners and 
crew were placed at our disposal; and, loaded 
with our canoes, tents, and provisions we start- 
ed for the mouth of Eagle River, twenty miles 
away at the bottom of the bay. The schooner 
drew too much water to land us as far as we 
wished to go, so late in the afternoon of July 
fourth, we went ashore at a small hut owned by 
the Company and formerly used as a shelter for 
the men tending the salmon nets. The hut was 
clean and had a large brick fire-place. We 
pitched two of our tents back on the hillside and 
used the hut for a cook-house and dining-room. 
The men had a tent at no great distance. 

The next morning, in a pouring rain, I went 



Letters from Labrador 19 

a mile or more up Eagle River and, with the 
assistance of the Company's man in charge of 
the net fishing, selected a camp-site on a bluff 
above the river, which is, as near as I can judge, 
about three times the size of our Merrimack at 
Concord. In two or three days our camp was 
pitched, balsam beds laid, cook-house built of 
tarred paper — ^there being no birch trees in Lab- 
rador large enough to furnish bark for that 
purpose — and the provisions poled through the 
rapids in the canoes and safely landed. Then 
the ladies were brought up in security through 
the foaming, rushing, seething waters, and we 
were settled for the most delightful five weeks 
I ever passed. 

"We fished the pools in front of our camp and 
trudged over the old salmon trail that wound 
up a hill and down again to the big pool below 
the falls, where a canoe was launched and our 
largest fish taken. The men carried the canoes 
above the falls and we made trips up the reaches 
of the river to great ponds, stopping to fish the 
different pools on the way, and at noon halting 
to ''boil the kettle" and have lunch, returning 
by daylight, between nine and ten o'clock in 
the evening, making a long, happy day. 

I made a trip of several days up Paradise 



20 Letters from Labrador 

River, another stream flowing into Sandwich 
Bay, famous for its natural beauties and the 
astonishing number of seals that gather there to 
breed. These are the hair seals, the young of 
which have a beautifully mottled coat, used now 
for automobile garments. It is rare sport to 
hunt these creatures, as they are very shy and 
in the water offer a mark (the top of the head) 
no larger than a two-inch circle. We climbed 
some of the mountains, sailed in the bay and 
made excursions to some new spot almost daily. 

While the attractions of Sandwich Bay 
seemed little short of inexhaustible, yet we pined 
to see more of Labrador, to have a wider range, 
to fish other rivers, and to explore other and 
more lovely bays. The uncertainty of the ar- 
rival of the steamer, and the great labor of 
breaking camp and packing, added to the incon- 
venience of our having no craft of our own to 
take us up the bay to the Post, where the steam- 
er calls, precluded our moving and camping in 
other bays. 

The conviction grew that had we a schooner 
properly fitted we might cruise at will, pitching 
camp in any bay we chose, and leaving for fresh 
pastures as the sport moved, which seemed ideal. 
We could imagine nothing more perfect except, 



Letters from Labrador 21 

perhaps, to have an auxiliary yacht and so be 
independent of contrary winds, but expense pro- 
hibited that, so our plans developed this sum- 
mer of 1903 in our chartering through a St. 
John's exporting firm, with the kind assistance 
of Mr. Morine, the eighty-ton schooner Gladys u0^^ 

Mackenzie — Gladys for short. , pJ*' 

She is a staunch craft, formerly used js car- 
rier between the ports of Oporto, Sp«rfn, and St. 
John's, with occasional trips to the West In- 
dies; capable of weathering anything from a 
September gale off the east coast of Newfound- 
land to a tropical hurricane. Last year the 
Gladys was entirely re-topped, which means she 
was rebuilt from her hull, so she is fresh, clean 
and sweet. 

A floor was laid over the ballast, the entire 
length of her hold, and partitions put up, mak- 
ing a comfortable and cozy cabin, gained by a 
flight of railed stairs through a booby hatch 
amidships. On each side of a passage leading 
back from the cabin are the staterooms. Over 
the cabin table is a skylight arranged to open in 
fair weather, which, with the hatch opening, 
gives us an abundance of sunlight and fresh air. 

A cabin stove supplies our heat. About the 
walls of the cabin are racks for the guns and 



22 Letters from Labrador 

fishing-rods, the table glass and crockery, and 
shelves for the books, for we always bring plen- 
ty of reading matter. Across each end of the 
cabin is a locker that serves, with the help of 
cushions, rugs and pillows, to make a couch or 
chairs. An English ensign is draped back of 
one, and an American flag back of the other; 
these flags having been used each year to fly 
from our camps, are consequently associated 
with much pleasure. At Little Bay a week ago 
a beautiful pair of Micmac Indian snow-shoes 
were left us to carry to a member of our party 
last year, unfortunately not with us now; and 
these adorn another space. A caribou head 
holds a vantage point, and a glory of gorgeously 
colored sweet-grass fans lends a bright patch to 
one side. I wish you could all see this cabin; 
it's not half a bad place in which to sit after 
darkness has fallen, when the lamp is lighted, 
and a good novel like Quiller Couch's latest, 
' ' The Adventures of Harry Revel, ' ' lies at hand. 
If you have not read that story, don't delay. 

The Gladys is owned and sailed by Captain 
Joseph Osmond of Tizzard's Harbor, Notre 
Dame Bay. The mate is the captain's brother, 
who has been a trader for years and knows this 
coast almost with his eyes shut. A Newfound- 



Letters from Labrador 23 

land trader goes up and down the coast in a 
schooner, entering all the bays, their arms, coves 
and harbors, wherever a few fisher-folk live or 
there are towns. His schooner is laden with 
flour, pork, molasses, and other provisions, dry- 
goods, tobacco and notions. The people he deals 
with have no money; the cod-fish and salmon, 
with such furs as they are able to trap, are their 
only legal tender. They barter these for the 
goods the trader carries and, in most cases, this 
is the only method they have of obtaining the 
necessities of life. Should the trader fail to 
guide his craft into their little cove they would 
starve, for scarcely any possess a boat larger 
than their fishing punt. In White Bay, Notre 
Dame Bay, and any of those bays remote from 
St. John's, there are many old people living 
who have never been out of the little cove they 
were born in. 

Besides the captain and mate, there are four 
seamen, each selected for his knowledge of dif- 
ferent parts of the Labrador coast. I have two 
canoe men, or guides, and a cook and cabin boy. 
The regular cabin of the schooner is used as a 
kitchen, the men living forward in the peak. 
For boats I have a Gerrish canvas canoe, twenty 
feet long, a canvas boat with canoe ends, seven- 



24 Letters from Labrador 

teen feet long, and a pine dory, twenty feet 
long, installed with a three horse-power gasoline 
engine. We have our tents and other parapher- 
nalia and intend to camp in the different bays 
where there is sport. 

Thus equipped we sailed from St. John's 
Harbor Saturday afternoon, June 27th, 1903, 
and turned the schooner's bow to the North. 







1 




IW 






1 




• *^. 


W -t 

1 


s 



C5 



LETTERS FROM LABRADOR 

II 

After leaving St. John 's Harbor late Saturday 
afternoon, June 27, the Gladys sped merrily 
along under a freshening breeze and full spread 
of canvas. We overtook and passed an old seal- 
ing steamer carrying several hundred men to 
the Labrador fishing stations; the last we saw 
of her she was headed for Brigus Harbor, as 
the wind was constantly increasing and the 
weather getting thick with the coming of night. 

We retired with hope for a long run, but woke 
to find the wind had left us to toss aimlessly 
about, with the fog coming in and many ice- 
bergs in sight. There was not breeze enough to 
hold the schooner steady, so her motion was any- 
thing but conducive to my comfort. All day we 
rolled to the sounds of creaking booms and flap- 
ping canvas. The air was bitter cold; on every 
berg and piece of pan ice were perched groups 
of curious birds, called by the natives "hag- 
dowas, ' ' or fog-birds, and countless numbers flew 
about the ship uttering their strange cries. The 
appearance of these birds always indicates the 



26 Letters from Labrador 

approach of fog, and they are said to disappear 
suddenly and mysteriously when the fog lifts. 

The captain came to suggest we would be 
more comfortable and in less danger to make a 
harbor, to which we agreed; and just before 
nightfall we anchored in Catalina. This town 
was once prosperous and of much importance, 
but with the decline of the fisheries it is losing 
prestige and shows decay, unfortunately a con- 
dition obtaining all over the island. 

From the old methods of fishing, using a hook 
and line, the inhabitants have adopted traps. 
A trap is a square net, generally fourteen fath- 
oms by twelve fathoms and ten fathoms deep. 
From the corner of one side of the net the mesh 
runs in towards the center on an angle, thus 
forming a small door. A leader or mooring line 
runs through this door and through the trap, 
one end being attached to a stake on the shore 
about thirty fathoms away, the other end to a 
grapnel outside. The distance from the shore 
is governed by the depth of water; it may be 
more or less than thirty fathoms. At each of 
the four corners another mooinng line is at- 
tached and indicated by buoys ; these are secure- 
ly fixed to grapnels. The cod swim through 
the converging space made by the angles and 



Letters from Labrador 27 

enter the trap, from which few escape. The 
law fixes the size of the mesh at four inches, 
but the law is sadly violated. The net is laid in 
leaves, one hundred meshes in a leaf. A good 
trap costs about $400. It is this method of 
catching cod in wholesale quanties that is de- 
pleting these waters and will inevitably ruin 
the one industry that supports the inhabitants 
of this island. 

Monday morning found a stiff northeast wind 
blowing which, being a head wind for us, pre- 
cluded our leaving the harbor, so we put ashore 
in the punt and made a tour of the town, which 
stretches in a semi-circle along the arm that 
makes the harbor. Many of the houses were 
evidently of great age and some of very good 
Colonial architecture. We saw old knockers on 
the quaintly paneled green-and-yellow front 
doors that we coveted. 

The trees were just bursting their buds June 
29th; vegetation was not more advanced than it 
is with us in late April or early May. All the 
trees looked wind-swept and forlorn, indicating 
by their trunks and branches turned in one 
direction the force of the cruel northeast gales 
which are the curse of this side of the island. 

Fish stages were all about. These are plat- 



28 Letters from Labrador 

forms raised on tall poles to a height rendering 
them safe from the depredation of dogs and cov- 
ered with evergreen boughs, on which the cod- 
fish are spread to dry in the sun. When the sun 
does not appear for many days, and sometimes 
weeks, as is frequently the case on this east 
coast, the loss to the fishermen is serious, for 
while the catch is not ruined, the value is de- 
preciated by a long process of curing. 

The capelin were running and everyone was 
busy. Capelin are small silvery fish resembling 
the smelt we find in our markets in winter. They 
are dried on stages in the sun for food and to 
feed the dogs in winter; but their greater use 
is for fertilizers to make more productive the 
pitiful patches of gardens where the women la- 
bor like slaves to cultivate a meagre harvest of 
potatoes, cabbages and turnips. Capelin are 
practically the only fertilizer the Newfound- 
lander has, for the people keep few domestic 
animals, except goats and sheep, which run at 
will; but dogs are everywhere, vicious looking 
mongrels whose courage does not bear out their 
appearance. The capelin begin to run late in 
June ; they come in from the sea in schools that 
have the appearance of great clouds sweeping 
just below the surface of the water. The na- 



Letters from Labrador 29 

tives draw them in seines and beach their punts 
loaded to the rail with masses of glittering silver 
that they pitch on the shore with forks, where 
the women, in picturesque red petticoats and 
white sun-bonnets, load them into dog-carts or 
half-barrels with two carrying poles, and take 
their weary way to their gardens. A pile of these 
little fish in the sunlight is a marvel of color. 
Their sides are iridescent with purple, green 
and pink, which, with the silver scales, gleam 
and sparkle like a mass of cleverly set jewels. 

We proved a source of much curiosity to the 
inhabitants. When we entered the harbor we 
were flying an American flag at the fore peak 
and a British ensign at the main, with our house 
flag below the American. Our house flag is 
large and white with a big crimson D in the 
middle; the same design of D that appears on 
articles of luxury in homes all over the world. 
One old mossbaek ventured to inquire of the 
ladies where we were bound, and why the flag 
at the fore peak. When told the flag was flying 
because we were citizens of the United States he 
seemed satisfied, but remarked they saw few 
flags except those flown by the French and Eng- 
lish warships that patrol the coast, and those 
were not always welcome sights. 



30 Letters from Labrador 

In our stroll we saw two boys at a brook 
filling a barrel set on wheels and drawn by dogs. 
An astonishing sight was a girl, not over seven 
or eight years old, with brilliant black eyes and 
olive complexion, carrying two full pails of 
water from a yoke across her shoulders, and a 
hoop depending just below the hips to prevent 
the pails from swinging. She was slight of 
figure and the ease with which she bore her 
burden was surprising. This is the kind of work 
the women are trained to from their earliest 
childhood. No task seems too hard, no work too 
rough. The men go out to their nets and back 
and their labor seems to end with that, except 
needed repairs to boats and nets and spreading 
the latter to dry; but to the women falls the 
drudgery and toil, the endless round of tasks 
from dawn through the long day of seventeen 
or eighteen hours to bed-time. The summer days 
of the Far North are long. The sun does not 
set until eight-thirty, the long Northern twilight 
follows and it is not really dark even here before 
ten o'clock. Farther north we have been able 
to read as late as that hour without artificial 
light. 

The Newfoundlanders are a prolific race; 
large families are the rule, which adds much to 
the hard lot of the women. They are a san- 



Letters from Labrador 31 

guine people, not over thrifty, having little care 
for to-morrow, if there is enough flour, pork and 
cabbage for today. If they catch enough fish to 
supply these simple needs they are satisfied, and 
if the fishing fails it's: "Oh, well! b'y, there 
will be more next year, and perhaps the gov- 
ernment won't see us starve." 

In many cases when the famine comes, the 
traders or the St. John's merchants who take 
their fish will furnish supplies on credit, trust- 
ing to the Newfoundlanders' universal honesty 
to wipe out the score their next good season. 
But sometimes the bountiful season is long in 
coming, the sea does not yield plentifully and 
the score grows. Or there is sickness, or the 
great gales come and tear and ruin the nets 
and traps, causing sad loss; but their native 
cheerfulness and hope never desert them. 

Finally, the head of the family is lost on the 
rocks, or dies of the common disease here, con- 
sumption, leaving a heavy debt. In that con- 
tingency it is frequently the case that the sons 
assume the debt, and carry it to their graves, 
lessening it in good years, only to have it grow 
in the off seasons, a constant drag, a stone about 
their necks; yet they never seem discouraged, 
which is, perhaps, more an indication of an easy, 



32 Letters from Labrador 

happy-go-lucky disposition, born in them, than 
the unconscious acceptance of the tenets of a 
faith promulgated from Concord, of which they 
probably never heard. It is fair to assume what 
they obtain from the trader and merchant does 
not come in a spirit of philanthropy, but enough 
profit is doubtless made during the years the 
account runs to warrant a final loss. 

The average Newfoundlander is deeply re- 
ligious and the strictest Sabbatarian with whom 
I ever came in contact. On that subject they 
are fanatics, with all the superstition which that 
implies. Out of respect to these principles I 
have not insisted on sailing the schooner Sun- 
day, permitting the crew to lay her up in har- 
bor ; but on the first occasion of a Sunday morn- 
ing at Sop's Arm, in White Bay, when with my 
rod I departed for the river, a look of absolute 
horror swept the faces of all. I brought back 
some fine salmon, enough for all hands, but the 
crew could not be induced to feast on my ill- 
gotten fish. 

Adverse winds prevailed all day Monday and 
conditions kept us in harbor until Tuesday noon, 
when we beat out and found a comfortable 
breeze. The sun appeared and the breeze 
strengthened. We went humming through the 



Letters from Labrador 33 

blue waters at a rate that quickened our pulses 
and filled us with, gladness. Dinner was served 
on deck in view of the precipitous coast along 
which we were sailing. Towering mountains of 
glittering ice met the eye wherever turned, some 
between us and the shore, others ahead, astern 
and dimly distant on the sea horizon. These 
wonderful derelicts from the frozen North are 
a source of constant wonder and delight. You 
never see two alike or one that is not strange 
and interesting in its peculiar way. To the 
person of imagination icebergs take grand and 
fantastic shapes. Some reach into domes and 
pinnacles, Eastern temples of gleaming crystal. 
Others have the appearance of forts, bastioned 
and turreted. We saw one that was a perfect 
huge gondola; another bore striking resemblance 
to a swan. Under different effects of atmosphere 
and distance — which an artist would term values 
— their coloring changes, till from ghostly sheet- 
ed forms they merge to palaces of ivory and 
pearl, sometimes assuming a tinge of faintest 
blue, at others rosy tints. Where the sea surges 
against their feet is seen the most wonderful 
coloring, the purest shades of jade, again a tinge 
of indigo, or the milky blue of turquoise, and 
where the sun glints, translucent azure. Some 

3 



34 Letters from Labrador 

have caverns in their sides, and where the waves 
have worked beneath the water line to make a 
cave, the swell dashes in and out with a sound 
like rapid musketry. 

The quiet is almost daily disturbed by a dis- 
tant roar like that of heavy cannonading, which 
tells the story of a "foundered" monster and 
its breaking up. We witnessed the spectacle of 
one huge mountain of ice "foundering," and it 
will never be forgotten. In its pallid splendor 
it rose and fell as if imbued with life and en- 
gaged in a Titanic struggle with the sea. At 
intervals a great mass would fall with a roar as 
of thunder and the water would leap high in 
the air to fall in a churning, seething, boiling 
foam. It is a trite statement that a berg is nine 
times larger below the water line than appears 
above ; which if true, can give only a faint con- 
ception of what they must be, when they break 
from their Arctic environment and start on 
their wasting voyage to the South. Beautiful 
as they are, yet are they terrible, for they are a 
constant menace to the mariner. It is impossible to 
tell by what is seen above water what there may 
be below. Sometimes the berg reaches wide be- 
yond its visual base, which makes it dangerous 
for a ship to go near. Take the conditions of 



Letters from Labrador 35 

numerous bergs, a stiff breeze, fog and the dark- 
ness of night, and a harbor is a safer place than 
the open sea in this locality. 

A hail from the watch in the bow called our 
attention to a school of huge fish just ahead. 
They seemed to be at play, chasing each other 
through the water and leaping clear, so their 
entire bodies could be seen, much as a salmon 
jumps. These were what our crew called "squid 
hounds," but I knew them for the great horse 
mackerel or, in the vernacular of the wealthy 
sportsman who frequents Catalina Island off the 
coast of Southern California, "leaping tuna." 
Down there they are taken with a rod and line, 
the reel a large affair, with a powerful tension 
or drag. The same methods have been tried 
here recently, but with no great success, as the 
fish in the colder waters of the North seems 
beyond such feeble control. The captain of our 
schooner, on leaving St. John's, obtained har- 
poons and large coils of rope and before my 
return I hope to capture a tuna, the largest and 
fiercest fighting game fish that swims. 

We had hardly recovered from our excite- 
ment over the "squid hounds" when an imper- 
tinent whale rose close to our sail; a biscuit 
might easily have been tossed on his broad back. 



36 Letters from Labrador 

The captain seized his old musket loaded with 
shot and fired. The whale went down without 
delay, leaving flecks of bloody foam on the 
water, showing he was hit. 

As the day waned the wind strengthened until 
the schooner lay over with her lee sail almost 
buried and dashed through the splashing flicker 
of gleaming spray. The sun set behind a mist- 
bank and a great mass of lurid clouds, leaving 
the sea a melancholy grey, except where the de- 
parting radiance threw a tremulous path of 
crimson over the changing wave ridges on our 
starboard side. On our port a full red moon 
caught the quiver of the waves and paved a glit- 
tering path out to sea where the shadows of dusk 
were deepening. The effect of both orbs shed- 
ding their brilliancy at the same hour with 
strong effect was new and strange to me, for 
while at home we frequently see the moon 
rising while yet it is dusk, the sun has so far 
sunk as to leave only a pale afterglow, too 
weak to vie with the moon 's radiance. 

The next morning we woke to find the G-ladys 
so steady I thought she was anchored. Going 
on deck I found we were slipping through water 
as smooth as a mill-pond, between wooded shores 
under a gentle breeze. This was the beginning 



Letters from Labrador 37 

of Stag Harbor Run, an inner course of Notre 
Dame Bay. What the natives call a "run" is a 
channel of water between the mainland and a 
chain of islands or between two chains of islands. 
Almost the entire coast of Labrador can be made 
through "runs." A "tickle" is a narrow space 
of water between land and is smaller and shorter 
than a "run." 

All day we sailed smoothly through this run 
and "Middle Tickle," past hundreds of islands, 
some green with trees, others sheer piles of rock 
covered with moss that gave softening tones of 
grey and brown to their rugged sides. Many 
icebergs have been blown in from the sea and 
stranded. We went near one in the launch and 
photographed it. The water about its base was 
churned into exquisite hues of blue and green. 
Later the men went to another in the port and 
gathered ice. We had brought a freezer from 
St. John 's and with evaporated cream one of the 
ladies made delicious ice-cream. 

Late in the afternoon we passed small fishing 
villages clinging to the shores, with high ever- 
green-clad hills rising back of them and almost 
invariably an iceberg stranded at their very 
doors. Early in the evening we rounded an 
enormous berg, one end of which the waves had 



38 Letters from Labrador 

carved to the perfect shape of the prow of a 
giant battleship, and entered Tizzard's Harbor, 
where the captain lived. A more picturesque 
village it would be difficult to imagine. The 
houses covered the sides of a hill rising from the 
water and in places were perched on cliffs that 
swept in a curve and held the harbor. 

The buildings were mostly guiltless of paint, 
but kind Nature had softened all to a restful 
tone of leaden grey, touched here and there with 
green, velvety moss. The shore was fringed 
with the fish-houses and drying stages. We 
climbed the hill back of the town and interrupt- 
ed a scene of activity. Women were bearing 
brimming tubs of capelin to their gardens on 
the farther slope of the hill. From the crest 
we looked on a stretch of unusual fertility for 
Newfoundland. The gardens are laid in long 
straight beds about three feet wide, between 
which are deep furrows. The capelin are spread 
over the beds, and soil from the furrows thrown 
over the little fish; when decay comes the fer- 
tilizing is complete. 

Everyone was intent on her work; those not 
bringing the fish from the harbor were spread- 
ing and covering. Two women heavily laden 
with a tub, set it down to give us greeting and 



Letters from Labrador 39 

descant on the hard lot of the Newfoundland 
woman. ''You'se don't have to do this work in 
you'se country?" inquired one. 

In the distance beyond the busy scene the sea 
was glowing under the setting sun, hermit 
thrushes and song sparrows were singing their 
vesper hymns; while faintly from the distance 
came the bleating of sheep and the tinkle of 
cow bells. 

Our next harbor was Twillingate, perhaps the 
most important town next to St. John's on the 
island. It wears an air of thrift and prosperity 
and probably has a population of ten or twelve 
thousand inhabitants. While here the Labrador 
steamer, Virginia Lake, en route for the Far 
North, came in. I went aboard and received a 
cordial greeting from the officers, with whom we 
spent more than two weeks going and coming 
last summer. She steamed out with handker- 
chiefs waving from her bridge to the ladies on 
our schooner. 

After we left Twillingate there came on a 
hard blow and it was very rough. I felt the 
pangs of sea-sickness, and lying down went to 
sleep. My nap was broken by Madame, who 
called me to come on deck and see the queer 
place we were in. I found a land-locked harbor 



40 Letters from Labrador 

with high hills rising sharply from the water's 
edge, and everywhere about the hills were white 
goats grazing and clambering over the rocks. 

Weather continuing rough, we remained here 
two days. I walked into the country about two 
miles and found a lovely lake set among the 
hills, in which trout were plentiful. The weather 
drove us next into Little Triton Harbor. Later 
we made Little Bay and anchored in sight of 
the ruins of a deserted copper mine. Newfound- 
land, as you doubtless know, holds in its rugged 
grasp many different minerals, but no mining 
on an extensive scale has been accomplished ex- 
cept at Belle Isle, off St. John's, where the 
richest iron deposit ever discovered supplies the 
enormous plant of the Dominion Iron and Steel 
Company, at Sidney, Cape Breton. It is said 
iron of absolute purity is taken from this mine 
with less expense and labor than from any mine 
in the world. There is a paying copper mine at 
Tilt Cove, owned and managed by an English 
syndicate; and at Sop's Arm, near the bottom 
of White Bay, up in a gulch among the hills, 
we found a gold mine in full operation, with 
stamps and smelters running briskly. This mine 
is exciting much interest throughout the island, 
as it is yielding gold in paying quantities. 



Letters from Labrador 41 

The deserted mine at Little Bay is a scene of 
pathetic desolation, indicative of lack of fore- 
sight on the part of its managers. It yielded 
large returns in the beginning; and in their 
eagerness to gather its riches, and becoming 
economical as their wealth increased, they neg- 
lected necessary precautions to strengthen the 
mine and it caved. The owners becoming dis- 
heartened, it was left, and to-day is a heap of 
slag, ore, dismantled engine, machines and 
crushers. Tons of iron lie rusting among the 
rocks from which the smelter chimney rears its 
giant shape of bare brick. Back from the scene 
of the works is a pond with sulphur-stained 
shores and vacant, weather-worn houses about 
its banks. Beyond towers the strange brown and 
green hill, bare of vegetation, a cold, stern, 
menacing pile, stained with its copper treasure. 
To the northwest ranges of birch-clad hills rise 
one above the other, draped with wreaths of 
filmy, curling mist. At my feet were the runs 
and islands and, way to the north where the run 
joined the open sea, loomed through the haze 
of night two weird icebergs, ghostly white. In 
the west a few bright streaks of waning sunset 
remained and threw reflections of dim crimson 
on the black surface of the pond below. 



42 Letters from Labrador 

The shadows deepened, silence prevailed and 
the tenantless houses stood sharply silhouetted 
against the hills. I thought of the time when 
this strange place of soundless desolation echoed 
to the hum of labor, the going and coming of 
many men, to the blows of hammers, the roar of 
the stamps, the screams of steam whistles — but 
this night a dumb ruin in a wilderness. 



LETTERS FROM LABRADOR 
III 

After leaving Belvoir Bay and starting north, 
we encountered contrary winds, thick weather, 
and much ice for two days. We dropped an- 
chor the first night in St. Lunaire Bay and the 
second evening found us in Griguet, a narrow 
harbor between long green ridges. 

We decided, if the weather continued unfav- 
orable, to beat round Cape Bauld and run into 
Pistolet Bay, another famous place for fishing 
frequented only by the British officers; but the 
morning of the third day brought southwest 
wind and we ran free, up beyond the Cape, leav- 
ing the coast of Newfoundland, and made the 
open straits of Belle Isle. So good was the 
breeze that we crossed this famous thoroughfare 
before night, made Labrador, entering Sizes 
Harbor Run. As I have explained in a previous 
letter, a *'run," in the vernacular of the North, 
is a course or passage of water sheltered from 
the open sea between the mainland and outlying 
islands. A large part of the eleven hundred 
miles of the Labrador coast can be made in peace 



44 Letters from Labrador 

and comfort through these "runs," with small 
concern for the weather outside, no matter how 
boisterous. 

Sizes Harbor Run is a placid reach between 
great rocky islands undoubtedly naked of vege- 
tation, except for lichens and mosses, that lend 
delicate tones to the marvelous scheme of color. 
At intervals wee fishing villages with their pic- 
turesque stages and bright colored boats came 
into view, actually clinging to the sloping sides 
of the rocks, or nestled snugly in some small 
estuary. Emerging to the open sea, we sighted 
Battle Islands across a stretch of heaving, foam- 
flecked water. 

The small white cottages of Battle Harbor, 
the most important settlement in Labrador, gave 
a touch of life to this vast impression of grim 
rock, illimitable reaches of restless deep blue 
water, and ragged clouds flying across a wild, 
wind-fretted sky. During our sail through the 
"run" the wind had been gradually drawing 
round, so, as we headed for the harbor, we were 
forced to beating on short tacks, finally getting 
the breeze dead ahead, blowing right out of the 
Harbor Tickle. 

The entrance is narrow, with dangerous rocks 
and shoals. Our skipper thought it unwise to 




^ 



Letters from Labrador 45 

attempt the passage. We were eager for mail 
we knew was waiting, so arranged for the schoon- 
er to lay to, I to go in with a small boat and two 
men, get the mail, return and head the schooner 
back to Sizes Harbor for night anchorage. 

The light craft we embarked in was tossed 
on the angry crested waves like a cork in a whirl- 
pool, but by degrees we worked in and passed 
the looming sentinels of rock that guard the 
harbor mouth. At the first wharf was moored the 
Strathcona, the Mission steam yacht in which 
Dr. G-renfell makes his errands of mercy along 
this hungry coast. The doctor put his head out 
of the deck cabin and called to ask if this was 
Mr. Durgin. I said ''Yes," and went to the 
station landing where the doctor arrived before 
me with Mr. Croutcher, agent for M^^er, ''^ 
Johnston & Company, of St. John's, owners of 
the store and fishing station established here. 
After a cordial greeting they wished to know 
why the schooner didn't come in, and learning 
the reason, Mr. Croutcher dispatched a skipper 
and crew in a large punt. The skipper took 
charge of the Gladys, some of our men were put 
in the punt with the other crew, a line was made 
fast to the schooner's bow, and with the long 
oars we were gradually worked in through the 
narrows and moored in quiet water. 



46 Letters from Labrador 

Battle Harbor is a "tickle" between two long 
islands of a large group called Battle Islands. 
It is a legend that a great battle was fought 
here between the Indians of the Straits and resi- 
dent Eskimos, from which incident it is said to 
have obtained its name. The islands are great 
masses of grey and reddish brown rock rising 
abruptly in fantastic outlines from the water. 
They are bare and barren; cruel in the grim 
force they offer to the clamoring sea that has 
vainly surged against their bases since the awful 
convulsion that hurled their weird shapes into 
outer space. 

The two islands that form the harbor rise in 
long slopes, on one of which hangs the village. 
The opposite slope is a vacant waste. Close to 
the water on the inhabited side are the wharves, 
store houses and other buildings of the fishing 
station ; a short way up the slope are the store, 
post-office and dwelling connected with the sta- 
tion; and beyond, towards the harbor mouth, 
are the hospital buildings of the Royal National 
Mission for Deep Sea Fishermen, two churches 
and the white cottages of the dwellers. 

In the coves and little bights of the general 
group of islands snuggle isolated cottages and 
rude "tilts" or huts with their roofs of bright 



Letters from Labrador 47 

green turf from which wild flowers nod to the 
ocean's breath. Perched on stilts close to the 
water are the fish stages flanked by their long 
houses with ever gaping doorways ready to re- 
ceive the cargoes of cod the punts bring in. 
Above the tumble of rocks gleam here and there 
spires of ice, and small ice pans blink under the 
sun's rays as they are tossed here and there on 
the restless blue sea. 

The morning following our arrival we went 
ashore, the ladies to the hospital and I to the 
post-office. Mr. Crouteher introduced me to a 
gentleman, a member of a New York publishing 
house, and he presented me to his traveling com- 
panion, Mr. Norman Duncan, author of those 
consummate pieces of literary work portraying 
Newfoundland life and character that have ap- 
peared in the form of short stories in several re- 
cent magazines, and are now collected under the 
title of "The Way of the Sea." 

It was a satisfaction as well as a pleasure to 
meet Mr. Duncan. My interest in Newfound- 
land and its people and a knowledge of their con- 
dition gained during several summers, enabled 
me to appreciate his remarkable work more, per- 
haps, than the casual reader unfamiliar with the 
subject. I found Mr. Duncan's personality as 



48 Letters from Labrador 

delightful as his work. He is the same dreamer 
I had pictured when I finished his first story. 
His face is an open page to his sensitive, highly 
strung nature, and it was easy to understand 
his ability actually to feel the sad and futile 
strivings, the disappointments, the pathos of 
the Newfoundland life. 

A slender man slightly over medium height, 
with regular features, a pallid complexion, dark, 
expressive eyes, and a mass of wavy dark hair 
heavily banded with white, he is, in his early 
thirties, a professor of Rhetoric and English in 
the "Washing-ton and Jefferson College of Penn- 
sylvania. 

Wishing to gain some information from Dr. 
Grenfell with reference to fishing and hunting 
prospects in the bays farther north, the publish- 
er and I strolled down to the wharf and boarded 
the Strathcona. We found the doctor in his 
cabin and, with the aid of his charts, he supplied 
the desired information. He gave me several 
flint arrow-heads, relics of the aborigines of 
Newfoundland. Dr. Kingman, a specialist 
from Boston and a guest of Dr. Grenfell, was 
present. He had made the journey to assist Dr. 
Grenfell in several delicate operations at the 
Battle Harbor Hospital. Dr. Kingman was ac- 



Letters from Labrador 49 

eompanied by Colonel Anderson, a veteran of 
the Civil War and at tlie present time pastor of 
Berkeley Temple in Boston. 

The dominant figure of the Labrador coast is 
Wilfred T. Grenfell, superintendent of the Roy- 
al National Mission for Deep Sea Pishing. In 
the performance of his varied duties, he admin- 
isters the offices of a clergyman of the Church 
of England, a physician and surgeon, and holds 
a Board of Trade certificate of competency as 
master mariner. As soon as ice conditions per- 
mit of navigation, the doctor starts in the small 
Mission steam yacht, the Strathcona, and makes 
the line of coast to Cape Chidley, the uttermost 
northern limit of Labrador. He stops in all the 
harbors where the fishermen have headquarters, 
enters the bays and penetrates the bights and 
coves, wherever a human creature lives. He suc- 
cors the sick and injured, gives religious conso- 
lation to the afflicted and sore in heart, feeds the 
hungry, clothes the naked, buries the dead, per- 
forms the marriage ceremony, and christens the 
new bom. 

With his powers of magistrate, conferred by 
the Newfoundland government, he represents 
the force of the law and brings the guilty to pun- 
ishment ; his duties in this capacity are less than 



50 Letters from Labrador 

the others, for there is more misery from poverty 
than crime in Labrador. When he finds patients 
in some dark hovel too ill to recover without con- 
stant care and nursing, they are taken from 
their foul environment, placed between clean 
white sheets in swinging cradles on the Strath- 
cona and conveyed to the nearest hospital, either 
at Battle or Indian Harbor. The sick fishermen 
are borne from the vile holds of the schooners to 
the cleanliness and comforts of the hospital, 
where they have proper food and medical at- 
tendance, with the ministrations of the trained 
nurses in their spotless garb. Better surround- 
ings than most of the poor creatures ever 
dreamed of ; as one said to me : " It is Heaven. ' ' 
The reason for the poverty that everywhere 
prevails in this vast country is, that after the 
precarious results of the hunter, trapper and 
fisherman fail to keep body and soul together, 
there is no other means of livelihood. To afford 
an opportunity for such as may, to earn their 
living, Dr. Grenfell has established a few ex- 
perimental industries in a small way. In one 
place is a saw-mill, in another a laboratory to 
refine cod liver oil. To correct the evils of the 
trading system, small co-operative stores on 
schooners have been furnished, which provide 
the necessities without overcharging. 



Letters from Labrador 51 

The Mission does not believe in pauperizing 
the poor by giving help of food and clothes un- 
less they make some return, provided, of course, 
that they are physically able ; so large quantities 
of birch wood are cut and piled in the various 
bays, which the Stratheona takes for fuel as she 
comes up. Oars are made and sold to the fish- 
ermen and the Newfoundland government. 

The women do beautiful embroideries in silk 
on caribou skin and make Ranger seal-skin bags 
worked with beads, also tobacco pouches, bags of 
loon skins and moccasins, which the Mission 
sends abroad for sale and offers to the few tour- 
ists who venture into these wilds. Withal, pov- 
erty holds the upper hand and Dr. Grenfell is 
put to sore straits to relieve the half he sees. 
I have been told he has more than once stripped 
his shoulders of his own warm coat to place it on 
some shivering, half-frozen creature. I have 
been witness to his infinite patience, for when 
his steamer drops anchor all the inhabitants for 
miles about flock to her deck. Everyone has an 
ailment or trouble ; all are listened to ; something 
is done for each. I wouldn't be surprised if 
sometimes a healthy but complaining man gets 
a bread pill, but he departs satisfied. 

The native of Labrador is often weak and 



52 Letters from Labrador 

childish; many are half-breeds with all the 
short-comings that implies, and it must take the 
patience of Job to deal with them. For exam- 
ple, in one bay where we anchored in sight of a 
Hudson Bay Post, a half-breed man and a widow 
half-breed with several children were married 
one evening by an itinerant Methodist preacher. 
I do not know if the parson got his four dollars 
prescribed by law up there, but when they 
passed our schooner in a boat, next morning, on 
what we may suppose was their wedding trip, 
they hailed our cook, Joe Plynn, and asked for 
breakfast. In his richest brogue Joe lectured 
them on their folly in getting married without 
knowing whence the next meal; followed that 
with some rare advice on conjugal duties; and 
finally said for the sake of the children he would 
feed them. So the wedding journey began on 
full stomachs. Dr. Grenfell tells of a couple 
that stood the minister off for his fee and then 
borrowed from him the price of a half -barrel of 
flour to start housekeeping. 

Dr. Grenfell has for able assistants Dr. Cluny 
McPherson at Battle Harbor and Dr. Simpson 
at Indian Harbor. The latter hospital is closed 
during the winter, but Battle Harbor remains 
open and the doctors make long and terrible 



Letters from Labrador 53 

sledge journeys hundreds of miles into the coun- 
try, with their teams of wolf dogs. They carry 
aU medicine in the tablet form to avoid freezing. 

From the Strathcona, — ^named by the way for 
Sir Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona and Mount 
Royal, Canadian High Commissioner in Eng- 
land, Governor of the Hudson Bay Company, 
magnate of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, for- 
merly plain Donald Smith in the service of the 
Hudson Bay Company on this coast, and who 
presented the yacht to the Mission, — ^we went to 
the hospital, where we found the ladies chatting 
with charming Mrs. McPherson, not long mar- 
ried, living in this silent place the year round, 
in strong devotion to her stalwart husband and 
his chosen work. 

There is nothing sectarian about this Mission, 
some of the workers are Episcopalians, some are 
Methodists and others are Presbyterians. To 
the best of my judgment, if I am able to judge, 
and from careful observation, all are real Chris- 
tians, — some of the very few I feel sure of ever 
having met. 

After a pleasant call in the cosy living-room 
of the hospital where the whole party except the 
doctors, who were busy, were gathered, we re- 
turned to the schooner for lunch. In the after- 



54 Letters from Labrador 

noon came an invitation from Dr. Croutcher to 
be present at a graphophone concert in the even- 
ing followed by a reading by Mr. Duncan. 

In a pouring rain we were rowed to the land- 
ing and, preceded by a man with a lantern, 
climbed a flight of steps to the long loft of one 
of the store houses belonging to the Company. 
Here, with seats and chairs, lighted by lanterns 
hanging from the rafters, were gathered many 
of the Company's servants. The people from 
the hospital with the guests soon arrived and 
took reserved seats with us. The graphophone 
was a large, fine one of sweet tone, presented to 
Dr. Grenfell by a friend of the Mission in Eng- 
land. Many of the records were new to me 
and very pretty. The machine was a wonder to 
most of the servants as evidenced by their faces. 
Sousa's marches followed hymns, and church 
music gave place to banjo solos. 

Following the concert the guests assembled in 
the large, wainscoted living-room of Mr. and 
Mrs. Croutcher 's dwelling, and Mr. Duncan with 
his manuscript on the table before him, his el- 
bow resting on the table and one hand buried in 
his clustering hair, began to read "A Beat 
t 'Harbor." At that time the story was unpub- 
lished; it appeared subsequently in Harper's 



Letters from Labrador 65 

Magazine for September. The reading was a 
revelation to me, for while I thought my own 
reading had given me the scope of his powers, 
I found that I had not grasped the full force and 
strength of his text. His inflections imitating 
the Newfoundland manner of speech were per- 
fect ; you heard their soft drawl and the peculiar 
clipping of words. It was easy to see he felt 
every line he had written. The burden of the 
story was an inborn fear of the sea, the wind and 
the fog. Mr. Duncan has this same dread, he 
never describes the sea in its laughing moods, 
but always in its somber tones. 

Eetuming in the boat, Madame conceived that 
she would like to invite our friends over to the 
schooner the next day for tea or lunch. She 
thought the ''real thing" would be to have some 
ice-cream, but it was too dark to go out and look 
for ice. The next day was Sunday and there 
was no man in our boat who would gather ice 
Sunday, even at the point of a gun. According 
to the Newfoundlander such things are wicked. 

However, as we neared the schooner a good 
sized ice pan was hanging about her stern and 
was soon secured, reminding Madame that "the 
Lord provideth." In the morning Colonel An- 
derson preached, some of our party attending. 



56 Letters from Labrador 

About four o'clock our guests arrived and filled 
our cabin. Including the four of us, there were 
fifteen. We had ice-cream, cake, confectionery, 
tea and coffee, with cigars and cigarettes for the 
men. It was a merry party; such a gathering 
was a rare treat to the Battle Harbor people 
who see so few new faces. 

We had Japanese paper napkins, and Colonel 
Anderson requested all to place their autographs 
on his napkin as a souvenir. Then all hands 
wanted a similar souvenir and we got busy. 
In the evening Dr. Grenfell preached in the lit- 
tle church on the hill. All of us attended; the 
publisher manipulated the reluctant keys of the 
whining parlor organ with great credit. The 
congregation was composed of the simple fisher 
folk, and to them Dr. Grenfell preached straight 
and direct. He told them what their lives should 
be, in simple but powerful language. He re- 
minded them that they were following the hon- 
orable calling of Christ's disciples, that of fish- 
ermen. In his surplice he made a strong im- 
pression of a man earnest in his endeavor to 
help his fellow men. 

Returning from church Dr. Grenfell told me 
he should leave the harbor at daybreak and 
would tow the Gladys out where we could get 



Letters from Labrador 57 

the wind if I wished. I thanked him and ac- 
cepted. The publisher (I don't use his name 
because he might not like it) and Mr. Duncan 
were going north on the Strathcona. The latter 
had agreed to write a Labrador novel for the 
publisher, using for a theme the work of this 
Mission. He was in Labrador to collect material. 
We were bound for Cartwright to fish Eagle 
River. The publisher was anxious to fish and 
had a brand new outfit. I invited him to join 
us, so as Dr. Grenfell must hasten to Indian 
Harbor and could steam night and day while 
on this coast, — we could only sail by day, and 
if we had the luck of a favorable wind — ^he 
agreed to have the publisher back to Cartwright 
about the time we arrived. 

I woke in the morning just enough to realize 
that we were moving and then sleep claimed me 
again. Once on deck, we were rolling and pitch- 
ing in a fog with no wind and the Strathcona 
gone. The outlook was disheartening, but later 
a southwest wind blew down and the weather 
cleared. The sun shone from a pale blue sky 
flecked with light, fleecy, white clouds and 
threw dancing light on a tossing sea of the deep- 
est blue. The rocky coast-line and islands were 
reddish brown at their bases where the water 



58 Letters from Labrador 

dashed in whitest foam. Above this harmony 
of blue water, white foam and tawny rock, tow- 
ered fantastic shapes clothed in browns, blues 
and purples. Beyond, in the distance, were the 
faintly blue peaks of mountains, and far away 
on the sea horizon, seen through openings be- 
tween the islands, were dim shapes of ice, ghost- 
like against the filmy blue. 

The schooner, carrying all sail, dashed through 
the leaping water and shook the white smother 
from her bow. All day the favoring breeze 
filled our sails and drove us steadily on, to the 
mysterious North. We passed through Domino 
Eun and Indian Tickle, where many fishing 
schooners were anchored and several big square- 
riggers, flying the flags of Norway, England and 
countries of the Mediterranean. These were 
here to buy the fish. 

The breeze softened with the declining sun, 
and we anchored in a small harbor shut in 
between cliffs of rock, holding far up on their 
ragged sides small fisher huts. Faint rays of 
yellow light struggled against the gloom through 
their crevices. Above stretched a canopy of vel- 
vet against which pulsed and burned a myriad 
of golden stars, the glorious dome of a Northern 
night. 



Letters from Labrador 59 

Below, in the black cavern made by the sur- 
rounding cliffs, were several fishing schooners. 
The sea had yielded of his bounty, for on the 
deck of each boat was a table; to its windward 
hung a screen of brown canvas tempering the 
bleak night breeze that came with the dark ; and 
at these tables were men and women working 
with haste that seemed undue. Great flaring 
torches shed crimson light over the scene and 
threw grotesque shadows against the swaying 
canvas. 

The summer breezes favored our journey, 
wafting the schooner to the north, past a pano- 
rama of rocky islands, frowning headlands and 
mountainous distances, all bathed in a keen, 
intense, electric blue. The sky was a deep dome 
of blue, the ocean vivid, flashing blue, and the 
rocks, hills and trees were drenched in the same 
riot of color. 

There was an element in the air that drove the 
blood coursing through the veins, creating a 
spirit of elation, a joy of living in accord with 
the glories of Nature 's sparkling mood. No care 
could bide under the stimulus of that blue ether 
and such a flood of glorious light. With all her 
paucity of other blessings, Labrador has wonder- 
ful air and light to spare, and the day will come 



60 Letters from Labrador 

when physicians will recognize the value of her 
summer climate as a curative agent. 

The name Labrador conjures romance, Hud- 
son Bay Posts, furs, mighty rivers flowing from 
an unexplored interior, wandering Indian tribes, 
Eskimos, terrible sledge journeys into desolation 
beyond words to depict, great droves of caribou, 
wolf dogs, long days in summer, long nights and 
bitter cold in winter. It is a peninsula bounded 
by the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the North Atlantic 
Ocean, Hudson Straits, Hudson Bay and to- 
wards the southwest by Rupert's River and two 
others. 

The "Encyclopedia Britanniea" says: "Lab- 
rador as a permanent abode of civilized man 
is one of the most uninviting spots on the face 
of the earth," which is undoubtedly true; but 
under the spell of its brief summer as a new 
resort for those seeking rest and invigorating 
air, with strange and interesting sights to occupy 
the mind, it is something more than a vast soli- 
tude of rocky hills. The permanent white popu- 
lation numbers five or six thousand, scattered 
along the coast in the different bays and inlets. 

They call themselves "Liveyeres" to distin- 
guish them from the twenty-odd thousand New- 
foundlers that visit the coast each summer for 



Letters from Labrador 61 

the cod fishing. North of Hopedale are the Eski- 
mos, and in the interior Indians called by the 
whites ''mountaineers," which is doubtless a 
corruption of Montaignais, a branch of the old 
Algonquin race. 

The Indians visit the coast to trade furs with 
the Hudson Bay Company; they are splendid 
specimens of humanity, most of the men being 
of great stature. Some of the whites are de- 
scendants of those who fled from England in 
press-gang days. Some are descendants of sail- 
ors wrecked on the coast, and of Newfoundland 
fishermen. A great number are from those who 
came out years ago in the service of the Hudson 
Bay Company, and marrying native women, 
never returned: the origin of the large propor- 
tion of half-breed population. 

The "Liveyere," or native of Labrador, is gen- 
erally the possessor of two dwellings, a summer 
hut on an island or outside headland, or in the 
bay near a river mouth for the salmon and trout 
netting, and a winter home, far up the bay or 
inlet, to be near wood and game, and to have 
the shelter of the forest from the bitter cold 
and terrible storms. 

In the summer the natives fish either for sal- 
mon and trout or for the cod outside. In the 



62 Letters from Labrador 

winter they set their traps for mink, marten, 
otter, beaver, fox, ermine and bear. What they 
obtain of fish and furs is sold at the Hudson 
Bay Company's Posts or to the agents of St. 
John's merchants in charge of the fishing sta- 
tions in the summer. Money seldom passes; 
flour, pork and molasses being the principal 
tender. 

It is next to impossible to raise vegetables of 
any kind so far north, and fresh meat, except 
game, is unknown. A ' ' Liveyere ' ' will eat any- 
thing that comes to his trap or gun, including 
the disgusting looking porcupine, which is con- 
sidered a delicacy. 

A family with more enterprise than the ma- 
jority has a small garden, strongly fenced as 
protection against the dogs, where they plant a 
few potatoes and turnips. The potatoes rarely 
ripen, as they are not planted much before July 
and the frost comes early in September. They 
eat the turnip tops for greens and sometimes 
succeed in digging a few half-grown turnip 
roots. Lettuce and radishes thrive, and at the 
Mission stations and Hudson Bay Company's 
Posts where people live who know their value, 
an abundance of these luxuries can be found in 
season. 



Letters from Labrador 63 

A few varieties of berries grow on the hills 
and marshes, which the natives prize highly and 
gather assiduously. Of these the favorite is the 
bake-apple, common also in Newfoundland. This 
berry is cup-shape, similar to a raspberry but 
larger. While growing on its stalk above a clus- 
ter of broad, dark green leaves, it is a rich red; 
when fully ripe it becomes yellow, like a drop of 
amber. Covered with water in a bottle tightly 
closed, the berries will keep indefinitely and are 
so preserved for the winter. The berry tastes 
flat and insipid, but the poor "Liveyere" con- 
siders it a rare delicacy, and beyond compare 
when sugar can be had. 

Very few natives of Labrador ever saw a 
horse or cow; within the present year in Sand- 
wich Bay and Hamilton Inlet where lumbering 
has been started, horses and oxen have appeared, 
much to the wonder of the people. Live-stock 
keeping of any kind is out of the question, be- 
cause of the Eskimo or wolf dogs, which will 
attack and eat anything. Cows, sheep and 
goats could only be kept by barricading in a 
strong shed. The dogs are the curse of the 
country; anything possible for them to catch 
and kill they make their prey. Not content with 
killing, they will destroy anything their teeth 



64 Letters from Labrador 

"will penetrate; boots and shoes are never safe 
within their reach. 

Once the factor of the Post at Rigoulette tried 
to keep some hens and goats in a strong enclos- 
ure. Two dogs succeeded in getting in and 
four minutes' time was sufficient to kill eight 
hens and tear four goats to pieces. Things they 
cannot eat or destroy they will steal and hide; 
one man lost his rifle in this way, another two 
handsome caribou heads. A human being is 
safe as long as he can stand on his feet; once 
down, the pack will tear him to pieces. 

With all their faults the dogs are considered 
indispensable. Harnessed to the komatik or 
Eskimo sledge, they provide the only means of 
travel in the winter, and can cover distances 
in remarkably quick time, on but one feeding a 
day. In the summer months the dogs are rarely 
fed, but left to forage for themselves. Great 
quantities of the little fish called capelin are 
thrown up by the sea and die on the rocks and 
beaches; these the dogs eat, often wandering 
long distances from home in their search, re- 
maining for weeks. In winter they are given 
seal blubber and dried capelin. 

Late one afternoon we entered Cartwright 
Run and sped on through the islands, familiar 












-0 



On Eagle River 



Letters from Labrador 65 

points rising on every hand. Soon Curlew Hill, 
with its observation stand and flag-staff, came 
into view and, rounding its barren flanks in the 
glory of a crimson sunset, the schooner slipped 
through the "tickle" and entered Sandwich 
Bay. As we came in sight of the Post there 
was much bustle and excitement. The blood red 
banner of the Hudson Bay Company fluttered 
to the peak of the flag-staff, there was a rapid 
discharge of fire-arms and a howl from the dog 
packs like all the demons of the lower regions 
let loose. 

A boat shot out from the long wharf and 
soon we were wringing the hand of our friend 
Swaffield, master of the Post, and the New York 
publisher whom Dr. Grenfell had left on his 
way North instead of bringing him back. We 
were delighted to find ourselves once more amid 
the scenes of our happiness the summer before, 
but couldn't feel quite happy until we heard 
again the song of Eagle River on its course 
through the hills. That song was twenty miles 
away, down the bay. We told the publisher he 
should surely catch a salmon to its music, and 
he did. 



LETTERS FROM LABRADOR 

IV 

The morning following the arrival in Sand- 
wich Bay dawned calm and beautiful. The sun 
poured a rich flood of golden light from a cloud- 
less vault, striking the pinnacle evergreens 
against the sky line on the far hill tops to 
plumes of silvery fire. No breath of wind was 
abroad to fret the calm water where the hills 
reflected their strange shapes in the crystal 
depths. Nature brooded in a warm hush, as loath 
to stir at the beginning of another day. 

A cable length from our mooring slumbered 
the Post, with its line of low white buildings 
facing the long plank walk. In the middle of 
the group stands the master's dwelling with its 
greater pretense at architecture, its curtains and 
the flowers in the windows. Beyond, on either 
hand, straggle the store-houses, each with its big 
number in black, conspicuous on the white- 
washed door; and back on either side are scat- 
tered the little houses that go to make the settle- 
ment of Cartwright, one of the important points 
in lonely Labrador. 



68 Letters from Labrador 

Back of the village rears big, brown Curlew 
Hill with its watch-tower and flag-staff; and on 
its northwest shoulder where everyone wanders 
at sunset time, to marvel at gorgeous glories 
such as our latitudes do not afford, and to 
launch dream ships up through the blue islands 
to that mysterious North beyond, slumber the 
dead in peace and silence I would hope to lie in. 

A scroll of gray smoke rose into the breathless 
calm from the servants ' quarters and the sounds 
of re-awakening life broke the stillness. A boat 
put off from the wharf and a messenger came 
to say the master thought a perfect day was 
promised to visit the islands outside and shoot 
seals. If I approved, he would hasten arrange- 
ments for our early departure so we might an- 
ticipate the possible rising of wind later in the 
day. 

After breakfast we paddled ashore equipped 
with guns and field-glasses. An unpropitious 
sign was a faint ripple, like a shiver, that crept 
across the placid bay and whispered of breezes 
to follow. White-haired Captain Tom, famous 
bear and seal hunter, was pottering over his 
boat, getting her ready, but pointed with su- 
perior wisdom to the cat's-paws that were be- 
ginning to dimple the surface, and remarked we 



Letters from Labrador 69 

couldn't expect to kill seals with a wind blowing. 
Finally Mr, Swaffield and the publisher joined 
the council, and as the zephyrs had now strength- 
ened to a good stiff breeze blowing down the 
bay, we concluded to up anchor and run for the 
mouth of Eagle River. 

So back to the Gladys, up canoes and to the 
whine and groan and clank of the capstan, we 
tore the reluctant anchor from its bed, hoisted 
our head sails and made for the "tickle" that 
joins that part of the bay forming a basin 
before Cartwright and the main portion, losing 
itself in sinuous arms among the mountains. 
It was cautious work for Captain Tom, who was 
pilot, to sail, what to him was so large a 
craft through the intricate course, but we came 
out safely, cast loose our foresail and mainsail, 
hoisted the gaff topsail and the main topmast 
staysail and tore away like mad. Everything 
was singing and humming with the breeze. 
Great banks of cloud flew across the sky, trailing 
blue shadows athwart the sun-lit mountain 
slopes, like sweeping robes of a hurrying host. 
Mighty Mealy lifted his ponderous bulk into the 
distance ahead, a crown of glittering snow adorn- 
ing his ragged brow, while from the fissures and 



70 Letters from Labrador 

ravines of his riven flanks welled floods of royal 
purple to glorify the cold gray rock. 

Running free before the wind we were soon 
in sight of the range of strangely mis-shapen 
hills out of which flows Eagle River from the 
south; and to the northwest stretched the line 
of blue peaks from whose fastnesses pour the 
waters of Whit« Bear. With Skipper Tom in 
the bow giving orders and a sailor heaving the 
lead, we felt our way to anchorage. 

The river brings down large deposits of sand, 
so the channel is constantly changing. Our 
schooner was larger and drew more water 
than any previously taken in; consequently it 
was not strange that we suddenly hit bottom. 
Fortunately it was only sand, and while the 
schooner rose and fell on the tide with discon- 
certing bumps, no damage resulted. The skipper 
and crew, however, were in a flutter of conster- 
nation and excitement. A kedge anchor with 
a strong cable was taken out in the punt and 
moored, then with all hands at the windlass the 
Gladys was warped off with no harm done. 

Following that fortunate result we sought a 
safer spot, the anchor was dropped and we rode 
at rest on the rising tide. On one hand was the 
little settlement of Dove Brook, the winter home 



Letters from Labrador 71 

of many of the inhabitants of Cartwright. Be- 
yond, a spot that a year before was a blade of 
silver strand piercing the blue water, was now 
covered with unsightly piles of freshly sawn 
lumber, and above the tree tops, back from the 
shore, hung a wreath of smoke showing the loca- 
tion of the mill. When we left the bay in Au- 
gust, the preceding year, it would have been 
hard to believe we would return to find the 
forest silence disturbed by the hum of a saw- 
mill ; but it was only a slight illustration of the 
sure and certain invasion of all the silent places 
of the earth, where it is possible for greed to 
lay its hand. 

The sun departiQg in crimson glory behind 
the western mountains whence flow the waters 
of "White Bear, tipped the ripples of the tide 
with ruby sparks. The shades of approaching 
night stole from the forest-clad slopes, while 
above, the mountain tops were yet bathed in 
gorgeous lights. 

The deck of the Gladys was soon thronged 
with visitors from the mill and Dove Brook, all 
hungry for news and anxious to talk. Some of 
the mill men were Nova Scotians and overjoyed 
to see people from the outer world. Interesting 
stories were told of their experiences the winter 



72 Letters from Labrador 

past, one man, an engineer, giving a thrilling 
tale of a sledge journey with his dangerously ill 
wife to the hospital at Battle Harbor. 

He started with a team of dogs, his wife snug 
in a box on the komatik and a native for a guide. 
The native lost his way and became useless in 
a panic of fear. The engineer tried every means 
to spur him to effort, even holding a loaded and 
cocked revolver to his head, but without avail. 
Finally when death for all seemed certain, an- 
other sledge came through the trees carrying 
Dr. McPherson on his round of mercy. The wife 
reached the hospital and her life was saved. 

Among our visitors were several who thought 
themselves in need of surgical and medical aid. 
One man had a badly lacerated hand from con- 
tact with the saw. The wound had been poorly 
cared for. One of the ladies cleansed and 
dressed it. Another had a sick wife and a third 
was the worried parent of a sick baby. We 
had to do something, so we sent some pellets that 
could do no harm if the imagination of the pa- 
tient could assist in their doing no good. One 
man had a bad cough and another thought he 
needed a tonic. The writer prescribed for these 
two with satisfactory results. 

Early the following morning the publisher, 



Letters from Labrador 73 

the writer and George Nichols of Deer Lake, 
Newfoundland, our eanoe-man and guide, em- 
barked and paddled into the mouth of Eagle 
River, bound for a day 's fishing. I had arranged 
for the ladies to come later in the ship's boat 
with some of the crew and bring the lunch. It 
was a sparkling morning. The air had the real 
Labrador snap and was rich with ozone. It did 
not need the regular dip of the bow paddle to 
send my blood leaping, but the healthy exercise 
was in happy accord with the other conditions. 

Our light craft slipped by the little clump of 
houses on Separation Point and drew up to the 
Hudson Bay Company's schooner. Alpha, an- 
chored for the night on her cruise around the 
bay collecting the salmon catch. I must have a 
word of welcome from Skipper Harry and his 
crew. Then with our prow pointing to the 
strange, mis-shapen humps of hills that mark 
the course of Eagle River we sped up against 
the strengthening current. 

The island of rocks on which perches the Sal- 
mon Post gradually rose to our view with its 
little white house and jumble of half -dismantled 
buildings where years ago salmon in enormous 
quantities were canned. Our Pacific Coast can- 
neries long ago drove that industry out, and to- 



74 Letters from Labrador 

day the salmon are preserved in huge hogs- 
heads with salt and shipped to England in bar- 
rels holding three hundred pounds, for which 
the company pays the native twenty dollars per 
barrel. At the Post on the island the company 
maintains a crew during the run of the fish and 
puts its nets at the best points of the river be- 
low the large pool. 

Just before reaching the island we passed a 
small, weather-stained hut which was to me of 
much interest. The summer previous we had 
visited it to see a strange old man living there, 
bedridden and in great apparent need. The 
man's name was Lethbridge; he was an English- 
man, a tinsmith by trade, who came to these 
wilds a young man more than fifty years ago, 
to make the tins or cans in which the salmon 
were preserved. He married an Eskimo woman 
by whom he had three sons and a daughter, who 
was caring for him devotedly. His duties as 
tinsmith occupied him part of the year only, and 
in the winter he followed trapping. He was 
successful ; but as age crept upon him he became 
a miser, not of money of which there was little, 
but of furs. He refused absolutely to sell his 
furs and stored them in a large chest. When I 
called, this chest was close to the head of the 



Letters from Labrador 75 

bed where he lay helpless in body, but with keen 
intelligence beaming from eyes of unnatural 
brilliance, long snowy hair falling about his 
shoulders and a patriarchal beard of white. 

In recent years since furs have increased so 
much in value, the fame of the chest and its 
contents, guarded so jealously by this grim trap- 
per fighting hard against the creeping shadows 
of death, has spread, and brought many wander- 
ing dealers to try and tempt old Lethbridge to 
raise the lid and barter his treasure. All ap- 
proaches, all offers, were repulsed with the hoary 
head rolling from side to side in negative reply 
and disdain flashing from the cavemed eyes. 
None knew how many priceless silver fox or 
splendid sable pelts lay in that chest, and the 
story told on steamer and schooner, in tilt and 
lodge lost nothing by repetition. 

The master of the Post on whom he was de- 
pendent for the issue of such frugal supplies as 
he was willing to accept, tried vainly to acquire 
the furs. In late years, for making tin tea-ket- 
tles and doing repairs for the Company, it be- 
came the miser's debtor for about a hundred 
dollars, on which he would consent to draw only 
enough to keep body and soul together; and no 
appeal to better his own condition or that of 



76 Letters from Labrador 

faithful Elizabeth could soften for an instant 
his hard determination to hold the mystery of 
the chest with its hoard of pelts. 

We carried nourishing food to the lonely hut 
and some of our men went down from camp and 
spHt wood for Elizabeth. Her half-breed broth- 
era never burdened her with attention. When 
we left it was expected the old man would not 
live many days. But he had lived another year ; 
and as we passed in the canoe Elizabeth stood 
at the door shading her eyes with her hand to 
look at us. When the time comes I will try to 
describe the scene we witnessed at Cartwright 
when Elizabeth and her brothers brought all that 
was mortal of the old man in a boat down 
through the "tickle" and buried it in the ceme- 
tery on the slope of hill looking toward the red 
sunsets in the west and the blue islands to the 
north. When we reached the Salmon Post at 
the foot of the quick water where the river 
makes its last plunge before it mingles with the 
tide, we ran the canoe on the smooth shelving 
rock and stepped out to shake hands with Ned 
Learning, in charge of the fishing. We took the 
publisher into the old buildings to see the ruined 
boilers and other remains of the Post industry; 
then re-embarked to be ferried to the trail while 
the guide poled up through the rapids. 




pL, 



w. 



Letters from Labrador 77 

The walk of a mile over the narrow winding 
trail was a joy to be remembered. What we 
call spring flowers were in their glory, and it 
was past middle August. The air was heavy 
with the sweetness of the Linnaea borealis or 
twin-flower. The growth was mostly spruce and 
fir, with occasional white birches gleaming like 
shafts of silver against the somber shade, and 
now and then, feathery larches. The sunlight 
filtered through the dim, filmy green, leaving 
splashes of gold on the forest carpet. A gentle 
breeze stirred the branches and set the golden 
splashes dancing and dodging in capers that 
dazzled the eyes. 

We came out at the clearing made the year be- 
fore where we built the camp, and found George 
ahead of us. Our nice dining-table of planed 
pine boards and the frames of our store-houses 
remained intact. In any other hunting country 
I have visited, the table would have been stolen 
by the time we were out of sight. 

The guide assembled our rods and we tried for 
salmon in front of the camp, but it was too late ; 
the fish were farther up ; so we trudged over the 
hill and came out to the big pool or in local 
parlance, the pot. This is a nearly circular 
body of water about half a mile in diameter set 



78 Letters from Labrador 

in an amphitheater of hills. Across from where 
the trail comes out, the river makes a leap and 
falls with a smother of white foam, to rush 
through a chaotic confusion of huge boulders. 
Just at the foot of the trail I suggested to the 
publisher where to make his first salmon cast. 
He threw several times and finally hooked a good 
one which he was fortunate in landing. We 
fished from the shore and quickly took three 
more, then we heard the voices of the ladies up 
the trail and soon they joined us. We with- 
drew our lines and they fished ; one good salmon 
was hooked and lost after fifteen minutes ' sharp 
play and another was landed. 

The boats were brought up the river to the 
pool and we went across to the foot of the falls. 
There, perched on the boulders, we had exciting 
sport, hooking grilse, small salmon of from four 
and a half to seven pounds, and speckled trout, 
some weighing four pounds. The fish were lying 
in the small pools behind the boulders. The 
pools were too small to allow opportunity to 
play the fish which would generally jump from 
one pool to another. It meant a taut line and 
trust to luck that the hook did not puU out ; or 
a comparatively free line and a race over the 
rocks, leaping from one to another. Fortunately 



Letters from Labrador 79 

the water was low or such precarious fishing 
could not have been indulged in. As it was, 
when lunch time came we had all the small sal- 
mon and large trout strung on two pieces of cod 
line, or small rope, that two six-foot Newfound- 
landers could possible carry. 

How many fish were lost from broken leaders 
and pulled out hooks in this unscientific fishing 
I wouldn't like to say. It was almost as much 
fun to lose as to catch in the carnival of sport 
we struck. Sometimes a too active fish in a pool 
he couldn't leave would require one of the men 
to enter the water above his waist and gaff be- 
fore the fish was done. It wasn't quite legiti- 
mate, according to strict rule, but it was riotous 
fun. You must know a grilse will take a fly 
more readily than a large salmon. It was so 
late that the large fish had mostly gone up the 
reaches of the river to some remote spawning- 
bed; but it is nearly as much sport to take a 
grilse as a salmon of size, for they wiU frequently 
fight more persistently than a twelve- or fif- 
teen-pound salmon, though of course less skill 
is required to kill them, as the mere weight of a 
large fish is a tax on the rod, requiring caution 
and watchfulness. 

In taking the fish from the water with so little 



80 Letters from Labrador 

anxiety for the rod, it must be remembered we 
were using salmon rods of fourteen and sixteen 
feet and weighing between twenty and thirty 
ounces, with a heavy line on a large reel and 
leaders tested to eight pounds dead weight. 

We boiled the kettle and had lunch, then re- 
turned to the fishing. When the sun dropped 
below our enclosure of hills, we started back, 
paddling the three miles separating us from the 
schooner through crimson flames that the de- 
parting sun sent broadcast on the waters. We 
found the schooner Maggie from the Post an- 
chored in sight of the Gladys, and Mr. SwafSeld 
came over with our mail, which the Virginia 
Lake had left at Cartwright that morning. He 
reported the steamer would not go into Cart- 
wright on her return from the North so the pub- 
lisher must meet her at Pact's Harbor Tuesday. 
I knew well enough she would not return by 
Tuesday, but we planned to get there on that 
day, nevertheless. 

After breakfast next morning a boat with two 
men rowed over from Dove Brook. In the boat 
was a barrel and the men delivered a note for 
Madame from the party on the Maggie, request- 
ing she accept the gift of a Labrador turkey. 
The barrel was put aboard and revealed a big, 



Letters from Labrador 81 

fat porcupine very much alive and bristling with, 
quills. The animal was quiet during the day, 
making no effort to escape. Once in the night 
I was vaguely conscious of the patter of little 
feet on the deck over my head, but gave the 
matter no thought. In the morning we found 
the crew in a gale of mirth. 

The after cabin, gained by three narrow steps 
down from the deck, over which stands a square 
hatch with a skylight, was used for our kitchen 
or galley. The cook, Joe Flynn, had lit his fire 
for breakfast and turned to go up the steps to 
the deck, when his startled eyes fell on the por- 
cupine standing in the hatchway, gazing intently 
at him. Joe shared with many others the super- 
stition that a hedgehog can throw his quills from 
a distance, and that once struck, they wiU work 
into the flesh and reach the vitals. He sought 
vainly for a chance to escape. He couldn 't reach 
the skylight and "porkey" stood guard at the 
entrance. So Joe let loose some good Irish yells 
and called on all the saints to protect him. The 
men tumbled up from the peak and after en- 
joying Joe's plight for a time, George, the guide, 
lifted the animal between two staves and replaced 
him in the barrel. Then Joe told the story of 
his fear, ending each sentence with *'0h! the 
eyes of 'im!" 

6 



82 Letters from Labrador 

After the excitement due to the porcupine's 
dash for liberty had subsided, Joe gave us a 
breakfast, packed a bountiful lunch and with 
George, the guide, Fred Brown, a native trapper 
and salmon fisher, and two of the crew, we start- 
ed for a day's journey into the wilds by way of 
the course of Eagle Eiver. 

As our boats and canoes left the side of the 
schooner there was no softness about the hills; 
they were incisive against the tender blue of the 
sky as though cut from cardboard. The flood 
of sunshine that drenched the primal scene of 
mountain, sea and river was keen in its search- 
ing brilliance. The air was crisp and set every 
nerve in sympathy with the sparkle and tingle 
of the Northern day and its promise of early 
frost. We reached the foot of the falls where 
we fished the day before ; the canoes were carried 
over on the shoulders of the men; then we em- 
barked to float slowly on the brown bosom of the 
river, through a maze of wooded islands with 
strands of yellow sand, and past the banks 
where trees crowded to the water's edge. 

At noon we reached a great sloping ledge of 
rock that was the front of an island in mid- 
stream, separating the water like the prow of a 
great ship. Here we landed, the men built a 



Letters from Labrador 83 

fire, and lunch was served. At our backs where 
the bare rock halted, the forest rose in a density 
no man could penetrate without an axe. 

Embarking from this point with our longing 
for creature comforts satisfied, we began the 
passage of a lake about three miles in length, 
made by the river widening into a stretch of 
still water, perhaps a mile in width. This feature 
is a characteristic of most Labrador rivers. There 
will be a run of quick water or rapids sometimes 
miles in length, then the river will spread out 
in a level country and form a pond or lake. 

Several streams entered this lake, and skirting 
the shore in the canoe, we crept into their mouths 
and looked for signs of the different fur-bearing 
animals, the otter, mink, marten and beaver. 
Beaver cuttings were plentiful, showing that rare 
animal is far from extinction in Labrador. At 
two points we visited bear traps owned by 
Brown, who was with us. At one spot where he 
had taken fifteen bears at different times, the 
surroundings testified to the strength and fury 
of the trapped creatures. Great stumps were 
torn apart and the ground was ploughed in 
every direction. 

Leaving the lake we again breasted the quick 
water, and with the aid of the poles forced our 



84 Letters from Labrador 

passage against the torrent until we reached a 
cliff where the river poured through a flume of 
sheer rock so high the sunlight was excluded. 
This ended our advance; we could only gaze 
into the dusky cleft, wonder what was beyond 
and yearn to go whence that water came, to ex- 
plore the mysteries of those lonely wastes and 
solitudes. 

The paddle back, through the sunset light, was 
a peaceful and soothing end to a glorious day. 
The distant mountains were carved turquoise 
against a sky of translucent gold, fading to opal 
tints, flecked with cloud gems of myriad hues, 
all dimming softly as the dusk drew on, until we 
reached the schooner when only a thin streak of 
yellow light was left in the west, while in the 
east a big moon was swinging above the shadowy 
purple of the mountains and stretching a glitter- 
ing path across the pulsing flood. 

The next day after waiting for a favorable 
wind which finally came, we weighed anchor and 
stood across the bay for Paradise, a name of 
promise bestowed by someone of appreciation 
on the scattered settlement nestled in a narrow 
arm of the winding bay between high mountains, 
ragged cliffs and queerly shaped domes of hills. 
This arm with its green islands and thickly wood- 



Letters from Labrador 85 

ed shores reaches deep into the land to meet the 
dancing waters of Paradise Eiver flowing from 
the far interior. More than that no one knows 
except the Indians who used to come down its 
waters annually to trade at the Post, after which 
they went silently back. 

I had toiled against its current and floated on 
the placid stretches of dead water for four long 
days the year before, and was so entranced with 
the beauties it had to offer I wanted others to 
enjoy them with me ; so early on the morning of 
our arrival we started in two canoes. Madame 
and I with George, the guide, and Garland Leth- 
bridge, a half-breed, were in one; and the pub- 
lisher with the "Liveyere" Brown and Fred, one 
of our crew, in the other. 

It was rapids at the start with the men poling, 
then a stretch of quieter water and a big lake 
lying like molten gold beneath the sun, without 
a breath to stir a ripple. At our approach flocks 
of ducks rose and flew, trailing away in long, 
straight lines. We began to see the dark, round 
spot on the water that indicated a ranger seal 
up for air; and rounding a point, came on a 
whole colony of seals asleep in the sun on the 
rocks. I fired at one and hit for fair ; the others 
fell and rolled with much splashing into the 



86 Letters from Labrador 

water; then instantly all was still and you 
eonldn 't believe a seal had ever been there. Par- 
adise River is famous for this particular kind 
of seal. 

They enter the river in the spring after the 
ice leaves and stay until fall, rearing their young. 
The pelts of the young seals are very beautiful, 
being of a soft silvery gray deepening on the 
back to slate and mottled with irregular dark 
spots. The skins are used by the natives for 
winter coats and other articles of clothing. They 
also serve a useful purpose in the making of 
bags wrought with beads, which are sold as sou- 
venirs and sent to friends of the Mission in Eng- 
land, Canada and America to be disposed of at 
church fairs. 

I believe there is no more difficult creature on 
land or in water to hunt successfully than these 
seals. Their sense of smell is marvellously acute, 
and it is impossible to kill one unless the wind 
is from their direction. The quickness of a loon 
in diving between the flash of a gun and the ar- 
rival of the bullet is quite outdone by these wary 
creatures. It always seemed to me they went 
down just about the time you were ready to pull 
the trigger. They certainly possess a wonder- 
fully keen sense of danger. If shot in deep 



Letters from Labrador 87 

water they will sink almost instantly and are 
not often brought up. 

Sometimes if the wind is in your favor and 
you are very quick with the canoe, you can sur- 
prise a family of seals wide awake and engaged 
in frolic. It is a sight never to be forgotten. 
They chase each other, raise their bodies half out 
of water, displaying their mis-shapen head with 
its little round eyes and long whiskers, and ut- 
tering a queer barking cry. They strike with 
their flippers and swim madly about with a sec- 
tion of glistening back above the water; but at 
the first untoward sound, the timorous animals 
disappear as by magic. Minute after minute 
passes; the ripples widen in sweeping, ever les- 
sening curves, until the water is a brown glare 
in the sun, like burnished copper; then a black 
spot appears, breaking the sheen but with no 
splash, no disturbance, softly, breathlessly. 
If there seems no danger the signal is made in 
some unknown way, other heads appear and play 
is soon resumed. 

We paddled our way quietly across the lonely 
lakes, up through flat meadows, deep green in a 
luxurious growth of tall grasses, where we drove 
the broods of ducklings in skurrying haste, ad- 
monished by subdued quacks from anxious moth- 



88 Letters from Labrador 

ers. For a long distance two loons kept ahead, 
just out of range, and sent back their insane 
laughter ending in that strange weird wail that, 
to me, is the soul of the forest crying far and 
wide. 

At high noon we found a beautiful growth of 
birch on a peninsula where we "boiled the ket- 
tle." The spot was as clear of underbrush as a 
park, and the straight trunks seen through the 
green dusk below were like dull ivory, flecked 
yellow where a stray sunbeam found its way in. 
Beyond were the pale blue peaks out of which the 
river wound its course, a distance of mystery 
whence came the tall Indians in their big canoes 
with their squaws and babies and little pointed- 
nosed, yelping dogs. We were back to the 
schooner just after dusk, and retired for an early 
rise in the morning with hope for wind and a 
quick run to Pact's Harbor to meet the Virginia 
Lake, thence North. 

In another letter from Indian Harbor, I will 
try to give an idea of methods of fishing and 
living prevailing among the thousands of New- 
foundlanders who go to "the Labrador" each 
summer. Then I will go to the Northwest River 
at the bottom of Hamilton Inlet, to the oldest 
Hudson Bav Post on Labrador, whence set out 



Letters from Labrador 89 

the ill-fated Leonidas Hubbard and his two com- 
panions. I saw them all and listened to the dire 
prophesies of men who knew too well the dan- 
gers and risks they were running into. All that 
is mortal of Hubbard is, at this writing, probably 
bound to a komatik being carried swiftly across 
the snowy wastes behind a team of shaggy wolf 
dogs. Starved to death in the interior of that 
terrible country ! 



LETTERS FROM LABRADOR 



The morning following our trip up Paradise 
River was one of rosy promise except for lack of 
wind. Tantalizing puffs came at intervals to ex- 
cite our hopes, but not the steady breeze we 
longed for. We were due at Pact's Harbor the 
next night to meet the Virginia Lake and put 
aboard the publisher and one of the men. I had 
little faith the steamer would meet her engage- 
ment on time, but our home-bound passengers 
were nervous; so with the foresail and headsail 
drawing fitfully, we lazily drifted down the slen- 
der arm to gain the open bay where we might ex- 
pect more wind. Even in the free spaces the 
breezes were capricious. The sails would sud- 
denly fill at a teasing gust, bringing a welcome 
gurgle from the prow as it clove the quiet water, 
only to die as quickly, leaving the canvas swing- 
ing, idly supine. 

We endured this nerve-racking drift all day, 
making some progress when the playful cat's- 
paws dimpled the blue water and as the day 
lengthened and the tide turned, gaining some 



92 Letters from Labrador 

help from that source, until at dusk, just at the 
entrance of the narrow "tickle" that held us 
from view of Cartwright, the wind dropped alto- 
gether and we were forced to anchor. 

No better conditions greeted us in the morn- 
ing. The bay was an unbroken mirror reflecting 
the hills and every line of our listless craft; so 
those for the steamer and an extra hand for the 
oars embarked in one of the boats for Cartwright 
and thence to Pact's Harbor. It was a warm day 
for Labrador ; the sun poured a flood of blinding 
light that beat upon the water until it gleamed 
and flashed like molten silver. The vague shapes 
of the distant mountain peaks were dim in a gray 
haze against a sky of cloudless, opaque blue. We 
worried through the long, lonely day, painfully 
lacking sound or motion until the sun dipped 
below the hills, when, without warning, a dark 
line came hurrying across the placid brine, rude- 
ly furrowing the smooth surface until it leaped 
in points of angry white. Then to the merry tune 
of the singing breeze, the creaking windlass and 
the chanting sailors, we hove up, made sail and 
dashed through the flying spray for a soul-stir- 
ring sail into the long Northern twilight. 

We made Cartwright, ripping along, the big 
schooner smashing her way through the rising 




Ready for the Start 



Letters from Labrador 93 

waves; tore past the Post where Mr. Swaffield 
stood at the staff dipping the blood-red flag ; and 
rounding the point with its small white houses 
into the passage that gives outlet to the open sea, 
hove her up, to the sound of whistling wind and 
slapping sails, while Captain Tom, our pilot, 
dropped into his boat, towing behind, and made 
for his home on the point. Then through the 
splashing, hissing water the Gladys breasted her 
way to the outside course, steering north. As 
twilight deepened to dark the wind subsided 
as quickly as it rose, until in the thickening 
gloom we were forced to anchor under the shel- 
ter of a barren island of rock. 

When I reached deck from the cabin in the 
morning it was wet with the salt spray and the 
schooner was running free before a wind that 
came with the dawn. Pact 's Harbor was in plain 
sight over our lee bow. Two grim, forbidding 
hills of gray rock rose abruptly from the water 
and on a ledge at the narrow mouth clung a 
white house with a line of slender-legged fish 
stages. A group of men stood on the rock below 
the house gazing at the schooner, one raising a 
fluttering handkerchief to the breeze. I an- 
swered ; they clambered back over the rocks and 
soon a boat put out in our direction. Then we 



94 Letters from Labrador 

knew in spite of our delay the steamer had not 
arrived from the North. 

The Gladys was skillfully maneuvered without 
shortening sail and our friends were quickly 
aboard. With them came Kenneth Burry, who 
the year before held the position at Cartwright 
of school-master and Church of England lay 
reader. After marriage and the coming of chil- 
dren, he found his salary of three hundred dol- 
lars a year inadequate to his needs, so he had 
foolishly resigned to join with a sanguine new- 
comer from Canada in the business of trading 
with the ''Liveyeres" for furs and fish: but he, 
like all others who make the experiment, has 
found the Hudson Bay Company a hard com- 
petitor, Burry was in haste to tell he had se- 
lected some extra fine Arctic fox skins and se- 
cured a rare blue wolf he had refused all offers 
for, believing I would want it. The publisher 
was equally anxious to say if I wasn't particular 
about the wolf skin he hoped I would let him 
have it. 

George Nichols, the guide, explained to my 
inquiry that the wolf was what a trapper calls 
a "freak" timber wolf, being ''freak" in the 
way of color. When, after landing, I saw these 
furs that had been culled from the fruits of 



Letters from Labrador 95 

many traps, their beauty was a delight. The fox 
skins were white as snow, the wolf almost black, 
the fur very long and silky with a east over the 
surface that in certain lights was steely blue. 
I took the furs that had been selected and saved 
so thoughtfully, and the publisher carried home 
the wolf pelt as the great treasure of Kis trip. 

We went ashore in the boat with our friends, 
leaving the schooner to beat back and forth out- 
side. The harbor entrance was narrow, and fear- 
ing a change of wind might hold the schooner 
a prisoner if she entered, we decided to keep her 
free, ready for a speedy resumption of our jour- 
ney North when the steamer came. After a word 
of welcome from Mrs. Burry we climbed to the 
top of the largest island, a sharp ascent of con- 
siderable height. The view was grand but 
strange ; everything the eye embraced was typical 
Labrador. The day was dull, the sky like lead, 
the horizon gray, with sheeted ice-shapes illusive 
through the gloom. 

Below were islands, great masses of riven 
rock, grim and harsh in their rugged outlines, 
cruelly naked of vegetation, awfully impressive 
in their eternal resistance to the pounding of the 
angry sea and the grinding of the mighty ice 
packs. "White schooners dotted the somber, sul- 



96 Letters from Labrador 

len flood, some hurrying home with a hold full 
of fish, others striving hard on a belated course 
to Northern grounds. Almost at our feet it 
seemed, was a big punt with eight men working 
like beasts as they drew a full trap, its load of 
cod falling over the rail in a stream of dull silver 
bodies. 

Below, at the edge of the harbor water, blue 
smoke curled upward from a chimney of wood 
against the rear wall of a small turf-thatched 
cabin. A girl in a blue wool petticoat bent to 
pass through the low door and spread some wash- 
ing on the rocks to dry. Beyond it all to the 
North stretched Cape Porcupine like a monster 
finger pointed out to sea, and held all eyes, for it 
was there we looked for the black cloud of smoke 
that would herald the mail steamer's coming. 

Ready to return we lost our schooner ; she had 
been tacking just outside the harbor mouth, but 
now was nowhere in sight. We found the skipper 
didn't like the weather signs and had run for 
a harbor a few miles away, called Dumpling, 
leaving us, as he supposed, to spend the day. 
But we wanted our own food and our homeward- 
bound friends were even more anxious for some 
of Joe 's cooking ; so a smiling Eskimo fisherman 
offered his clean boat with his services, and we 
set sail for Dumpling. 



Letters from Labrador 97 

We met a punt returning to harbor loaded to 
tlie rail with cod right from the water. At a 
signal from our Eskimo the punt hove up and I 
asked the man if he would sell me some fish. He 
asked "How many?" I said, ''Ten good ones; 
how much ? " " How much was you used to pay- 
ing?" he inquired. "Fifty cents for ten," I 
said. He selected ten splendid cod of from eight 
to twelve pounds each and threw them into our 
boat. Then the rails touched and I handed him 
a silver half-dollar. He was old, a gray-beard, 
the mark of many years' battle with the cruel 
sea written on face and poor, gnarled hands. He 
gazed at the coin for a moment; then stooping 
painfully threw two more large fish at my feet. 
Then he stood straight, looked squarely at me 
with the hand holding the silver extended, and 
said, ' ' In all my long life, fishing always, I never 
sold a fish for money before. God bless you!" 
He had sold tons of cod, but always in exchange 
for flour, pork, tea, molasses, the duffel and poor 
calico. During our barter a boy, a grandson 
probably, stood like a statue in the stern holding 
to an eighteen-foot sculling oar, black eyes wide 
with wonder. 

I wish all my readers could have enjoyed that 
meal of cod. You who have never been in the 

7 



98 Letters from Labrador 

land of cod can't know how codfish tastes that 
comes straight from those cold waters to the 
pan or broiler, under the skiUful care of a cook 
like Joe, old sea dog that he is, with the tales of 
the Arctic. Among the fish we bought was a 
large haddock. Joe called attention to two 
marks just back of the gills that looked as 
though a thumb and forefinger had held the fish, 
but it had slipped away. The Newfoundlanders 
have a legend that the Devil caught the haddock. 
^'Haddock, I have ye," said the Devil. The 
haddock said: "You haven't me," and slipped 
away; but the marks of Old Brimstone's finger 
and thumb are still there. Other natives of the 
land of fish contradict this story and say it was 
St, Peter who lost the haddock. Any way a 
"wonderful good fish" was lost. 

Dumpling, where our schooner was anchored, 
is a harbor between islands with both ends open 
so a boat can enter or leave on any wind. On one 
side the rock rises to a great height. After lunch 
we ascended this hill to look for the steamer, but 
in vain. On the shore in sight of the Gladys was 
a lonely grave with a rude head-board on which 
some inscription had been carved ; but time and 
weather had obliterated so much it could not be 
read. Many years ago the Post now at Cart- 



Letters from Labrador 99 

Wright occupied this island and was the scene of 
a murder. A few evidences of the buildings still 
remain. 

Just before dusk, George, the guide, came tear- 
ing from the hill where he had been keeping 
watch to announce the steamer in the offing. His 
engagement with me was over, as the fishing 
was done and he had an appointment early in 
September with an American sportsman whose 
name is known to the ends of the earth ; therefore 
he must take this boat or disappoint his patron. 
With the publisher and Fred Brown of Eagle 
River, who would fill George's place, the four 
of us embarked in the canoe for Pact's Harbor 
to get their luggage thence to the steamer out- 
side. The night was dark and the atmosphere 
heavy with fog. The great, black hull of the 
Virginia Lake was indistinct through the wreath- 
ing mists, but the bustle of her decks marked her 
location and we quickly made the steps over her 
side. 

There was a hearty greeting from Captain 
Parsons and the other officers; from Norman 
Duncan who was returning from a visit with 
Dr. Grenf ell on the Strathcona ; introductions to 
enthusiastic sportsmen and women too, and an 
explorer with an experience. There wasn't half 

LOFC 



100 Letters from Labrador 

time enough before the hoarse steam siren 
"bawled" through the fog (everything "bawls" 
in Newfoundland and Labrador) , warning us to 
say good-by. We east loose the canoe and waited 
on our paddles while the huge bulk wallowed 
into the gloom with a final scream and the jangle 
of bells from the engine-room. Her lights glowed 
like evil red eyes for a moment ; then the curtain 
of fog hid all save the departing sounds. The 
darkness settled almost instantly and as we 
dipped our paddles, Brown in the stem and I 
in the bow of the light canoe, the prospect had 
no attractions for me. 

A breeze was blowing and a sea rising that 
tossed us about with scant ceremony; in riding 
the waves the canoe was at times at an angle 
more exciting than pleasant. We overtook a big 
fishing punt with eight men at the long sweeps 
and one with a steering oar in the stern. A lan- 
tern hung over her rail and we kept the welcome 
light constantly in sight. With our buoyant 
craft it was easy to stay within speaking distance 
in spite of eight rowers pulling a slow stroke. 
We finally made the schooner and saw Madame 
anxiously searching the night with an electric 
torch that helped us to get aboard. The next 
day the winds were adverse so we went to the 



Letters from Labrador 101 

Burrys' house at Pact's Harbor, where we found 
Green. He arrived from the North on the Vir- 
gmia Lake that took our friends away. 

We had heard of Green from many and varied 
sources. His name and fame had met us at every 
stopping-place where we saw anyone since leav- 
ing Newfoundland. They would say: ''Have 
you seen Green?" and I would reply: "No, who 
the deuce is Green?" "What! Don't know 
Green? You never saw one like him." Some 
had mirth in their voices when speaking of 
Green, and some expressed anger. We thought 
we detected fear in a few. As we entered Mr. 
Burry's living room, a tall, magnificently pro- 
portioned creature rose from a chair and ac- 
knowledged our introduction with a graceful 
bow. This was Green, a big English boy just 
free from school, the son of a wealthy resident 
of Liverpool who is a liberal patron of the Deep 
Sea Mission. He had "come out" to join an ex- 
ploring expedition that had advertised in Eng- 
lish sporting journals to conduct a party into 
the unknown interior of Labrador. 

The "expedition" didn't materialize, so Green 
heard from "the governor." He was to see 
Labrador under Dr. Grenf ell's guidance. He 
was seeing it all right, but without much guid- 



102 Letters from Labrador 

ance, certainly not from the doctor. I couldn't 
quite make out if he was trying to find the Mis- 
sion yacht Strathcona or the Strathcona's master 
was trying to find him. Green told me several 
times he had entered a harbor on various kinds 
of craft from traders and fishing schooners to 
the mail steamer, only to have the Strathcona 
steam quietly out before he could get aboard. 
I told this to Dr. Grenfell later and he smiled. 

At almost every place we stopped in Labrador 
they had some of Green's wardrobe or outfit; he 
had scattered his belongings broadcast, leaving 
many in his haste to catch some departing boat 
for a fresh field. Now he told me he was waiting 
to go to Cartwright with Mr. Whitman of the 
Lumber Company to hunt bears on Eagle River, 
but he was shy on guns. He had sent several to 
St. John's to be repaired and they didn't send 
them back. They were ''beastly slow." Since 
I had heard of several narrow escapes the natives 
had made from Green's guns, I wondered what 
Dr. Grenfell would say if he really knew the 
guns didn't come back. But Green had a fresh 
"remittance" and was anxiously looking for 
some one with guns to sell. I kept mine out of 
sight. 

I enjoyed the boy immensely. He was a real 



Letters from Labrador 103 

boy, full of the impatience and ardor of youth ; 
nothing seemed to daunt him. He was willing 
to endure the filth and smell and poor food of a 
fishing schooner, if it would only take him where 
he had been told there were plenty of bears or 
ducks or caribou, and after he reached that place 
of plenty he would not hesitate to sleep under 
his canoe and live on the little he could buy from 
the poverty-stricken natives to stay and hunt. 

His conversation was copious, but interesting, 
delivered in modulated tones that showed careful 
education. The English phrases that fell nimbly 
from his lips were delightful, and if he saw you 
were pleased, his face lighted with pleasure. 
Despite his great frame and correspondingly 
large feet and hands — a young giant — ^his man- 
ner was composure and ease itself. His move- 
ments were free and graceful; he was a big, 
honest, unconscious boy, with a deference and 
respect in his bearing to the ladies and those 
older, that spoke everything for his training and 
early environment and which some American 
boys I have known would do well to emulate. 

The ease and safety with which this young 
man went up and down that wild coast shows a 
condition that exists, not alone in Labrador, but 
all over Newfoundland. It arises from the spirit 



104 Letters from Labrador 

of hospitality shared by all. You are welcome 
in any man's house and at any man's board, 
no matter how frugal, if you are willing to share 
the little he has. At times you might be obliged 
to sleep on the floor with the babies and other 
members of the family ; but their poor lot would 
make you none the less welcome. In some meas- 
ure the welcome may be due to the unutterable 
loneliness of their lives, and the pleasure of see- 
ing a new face and hearing about the outside 
world, of which they know so little. 

After several vain attempts, owing to contrary 
winds, we finally got squared away, headed for 
the North. We went out past Cape Porcupine 
and sailed for many miles in view of the yellow 
sands of Porcupine Strand, a stretch of beach 
of which there are few in Labrador. Back from 
this sandy shore it was thickly wooded for a 
short distance only; the trees dwindling, until 
the intervening space between the forest and the 
distant mountains became a great moor or bar- 
ren so common in this Northern country, the 
home and wandering place of the caribou. Por- 
cupine Strand is a famous place for bears which 
wander along the beach, eating the refuse from 
the sea. 

After a sail past an ever changing scene of 



Letters from Labrador 105 

rocky hills rising from the sea, — wooded shores 
and tier on tier of mountains towering blue in 
the distance, we made Gross Water Bay, one of 
the largest bays of Labrador, and headed across 
for Indian Harbor. The approach to this refuge 
is by a course through a group of islands of in- 
exorable rock, bare of a vestige of verdure. 

The harbor, like others in this desolation, lies 
between two long islands. We passed its rocky 
portals and dropped anchor in the midst of a 
scene I shall never forget. The day had been 
dull, the sky obscured by heavy clouds that the 
sun had furtively tried to pierce from time to 
time. The island lying at the right hand of our 
mooring rose to a great height of rock, riven and 
torn into fantastic shapes. Along its base for 
perhaps two miles stretched the basin, the dis- 
tance across to the other island being about half 
a mile at the widest point. Anchored in this 
narrow place we counted forty-eight schooners. 
It was Saturday near nightfall and the craft, 
mostly heavily laden with the summer's catch of 
cod, were homeward bound, stopping here for 
Sunday and at the signs of a storm. 

The schooners were of all sizes and colors; 
their crowded decks a confusion of boats, nets, 
barrels and men so huddled and packed I won- 



106 Letters from Labrador 

dered how they managed to handle the gear. 
Their spars and rigging made a network against 
the grim rocks that towered above them. Their 
rails were fringed with eager faces gazing with 
intent interest at our big craft with its strange 
flags. Among the crews were many women, 
some coming from the after cabins at a call to 
stand with bare heads and arms, curiosity in 
every pose. Small boats surrounded the Gladys, 
the fishermen asking if our boat was a trader, 
each anxious to buy salt or tobacco. 

Up near the western outlet of the harbor, be- 
neath a beetling crag that looked in imminent 
danger of falling, clustered the white buildings 
of the Far North hospital. The window panes 
suddenly flashed to the glory of the setting sun 
that broke the confines of a mighty cloud and 
scattered a sheaf of golden arrows, transforming 
with gorgeous light every point of the gloomy 
scene. The rigging of the schooners caught the 
splendor, the weather-worn hulls brightening to 
the colors of their launching day. Blue, green, 
white, heliotrope, they dipped and nodded on the 
rippling silver sheen of the tide, merry over the 
sunlight, a brimming hold and the harbor home, 
so near. 

The canoe was launched and I paddled 



Letters from Labrador 107 

straight up the harbor into the sunset where the 
hospital buildings nestled beneath the overhang- 
ing, reeling cliffs, serrated sharply against the 
glowing sky, A white-clad nurse took my name 
to Dr. Simpson, who appeared with a cordial 
greeting and conducted me to their cosy living- 
room where "Sister Maud," his assistant, was 
preparing tea. I enjoyed a pleasant chat over 
the cups with these missionaries who are en- 
thusiastic in their work, and strange as it may 
seem, enjoy their surroundings. Sister Maud 
told me the winter just gone would bring their 
turn to visit England, to which I remarked, 
they must be impatient to leave this desolate 
place. She replied that while glad to go back 
for a visit, she loved Labrador and felt sad at 
the thought she might never see it again, as her 
return was uncertain. (We have just heard 
in a happy letter that she and the doctor will 
return in the spring as man and wife, — another 
strong example of the power of propinquity.) 
During the days we were harbor-bound by 
contrary winds and inclement weather, our vis- 
its between the hospital and schooner were en- 
joyably frequent. Sunday morning dawned 
with pale, cold sunshine, a gentle admonition 
that the brief Northern summer was near its 



108 Letters from Labrador 

end. Peace and quiet brooded over the water 
that lapped musically against the hulls of the 
fishing-fleet. A few figures moved about the 
decks with the precision and solemnity of a 
Newfoundland's Sabbath manner. It seems 
wicked to them to do much on that day except 
attend service and then sit with folded hands 
and meditative mood, waiting the slow course 
of the dragging hours. The shore looked invit- 
ing, so we took the boat and rowed to where a 
group of characteristic Labrador "tilts" drew 
our curiosity. 

The island to our left receded from the tide, 
in smooth ledges of gray rock, — an ascending 
slope, ground and polished by the ice and water 
to an even slippery surface, broken at intervals 
by hollows like bowls, filled with water, where 
the restless waves had turned and twisted some 
poised boulder until it worked its way into the 
island's foundation, to topple at a final convul- 
sion of the sea and roll away, leaving the little 
pools in their polished bowls to glow and wink 
in the red sunsets. 

Beyond the limit of the gurgling, seeping 
surges, the vivid green of grass and low bushes 
covered the rugged slopes. Placed at the edge 
of this greenery were the "tilts" or sod houses 



Letters from Labrador 109 

of the fishermen, glowing spots of brilliant 
green, with their peaked roofs etched sharply 
against the sinister rock ridges, rising beyond. 
The velvety green walls and roofs were relieved 
here and there by splashing of bright colored 
wild flowers growing from the sods. Entrance 
to these primitive habitations is by a low door- 
way facing the water and each hnt has one win- 
dow, low down, to prevent the escape of heat. 
The huts are warm, but with the door closed, 
without ventilation. Our careful approach over 
the precarious footing of wave-washed rock was 
watched with interest by a group of tall but 
sturdy men, fair examples of these Vikings of 
the Western Hemisphere. They gave us pleas- 
ant greeting, those not speaking showing by 
their pleased faces that we were welcome. From 
one of the "tilts" stepped a well-favored wo- 
man of middle age and a young girl. All were 
neat and clean in their Sunday raiment. 

I asked if we might take some pictures of 
their home. The assent was unanimous, the wo- 
men suggesting they would like a picture of 
themselves. We explained we could not com- 
plete the picture there but promised to send one 
if we knew where they lived, which brought the 
information they were residents of Brigus in 



110 Letters from Labrador 

Conception Bay, Newfoundland, not far from 
St. John's, the one city of the island. After 
the photographs were taken, the party grouping 
as we suggested, we were invited to enter one 
of the ''tilts." Inside the turf -covered walls 
were rough, gaping boards, over which were 
pasted sheets of newspaper and a few pages 
from illustrated English publications. The floor 
was scrubbed white and sprinkled with snowy, 
finely broken mussel shell, which is gathered 
from the rocks, where the grinding waves re- 
duce the shells almost to a powder. 

Rude benches placed against the wall afforded 
a place to sit, and the task of gratifying 
our hosts' curiosity began. Where did we come 
from and for what? was the blunt question we 
faced first. We told them we lived in the 
"States" and had come for sport, pleasure and 
health. 

The health portion of our proposition seems 
to find ready approval and endorsement, one 
man remarking Labrador air would save the 
life of many in the cities who were slowly dying. 
The sport they were not quite able to under- 
stand, for the catching of fish and shooting of 
game was but every day work to them. The idea 
of our finding pleasure wandering about their 



Letters from Labrador 111 

bleak, isolated coast, was baffling, until one of 
the men with a gleam of intelligence, said, * ' Oh, 
I see, it's all new and strange to youse. Now we 
see so many icebergs we don't stop to notice 
'em, only to keep a wide berth, but last winter 
in the" Lyceum hall at Brigus Dr. Grenfell gave 
a lecture with a picture lantern and showed 
colored pictures of icebergs. Sure they were 
grand," said he, "and looked as they have this 
summer. ' ' He dwelt on the ' ' wonderful colors ' ' 
seen in icebergs, but admitted while he had 
lived all his life among them, he never realized 
their beauty until Dr. Grenf ell's "picture lan- 
tern" opened his eyes. 

When, some days later I repeated the fisher- 
man's words to the doctor, his satisfaction was 
great at such evidence of harvest from his way- 
side sowing. He felt repaid even if one family 
had been taught to look for the beauties of Na- 
ture by the direction of his "picture lantern" 
and words. "Your wanting to see our 'tilts,' " 
said the master of the crew, "is like our wish 
to see your high buildings; now come to the 
stage and look at our catch." 

We followed his lead down to the water-side 
where the fishing stage, resting one end on the 
shore rocks, the other upheld by long, slender 



112 Letters from Labrador 

poles, stretched over the water to enable a boat 
to float beneath, while the returning crew 
pitched their load upon the platform with their 
three-pronged forks. We passed the stranded 
hull of a large boat roofed with sod, which 
served the purpose of a store-house for their 
nets, oars, salt and other fishing equipment. 
Inside the sod-roofed stage, we found it floored 
with their round poles called "rounders" laid 
closely, side by side. About mid-way was a 
table for splitting the fish. 

The freshly caught or "green fish," as they 
are termed, are pitched from the boat to the 
stage; seized, generally by a woman, who cuts 
off the head and is designated the "header." 
From the deft movements of the "header" the 
fish goes to the ' ' throater, ' ' another woman who, 
with a lightning pass of the knife opens the 
throat. Leaving her hands it passes to a man, 
the "splitter," who skillfully removes the back- 
bone and throws the fish to the "washer" at his 
tub. After thorough washing the fish are piled 
in long even rows, layer upon layer, and liber- 
ally sprinkled with coarse salt; more fish, more 
salt. The position of " Salter" is one of respon- 
sibility and requires good judgment, for to over- 
salt or under-salt means spoilt fish. Our hostess 



Letters from Labrador 113 

of the "tilt" informed us proudly that she was 
the ''Salter" of this outfit. 

After the fish have lain in the salt the requisite 
time, they are put in the sun to dry. If there 
are no dogs, the fish are spread on the clean, 
wave- washed rocks; but in Newfoundland they 
are placed on platforms raised on long poles. If 
the fish lie too long in the salt, they will be sod- 
den and gray. If, after they are spread to dry, 
they are allowed too much sun, the product will 
be burnt. If rain comes before they can be re- 
turned to shelter, damage results. The cod livers 
are carefully saved and are expected to sell for 
enough to pay for the salt used in curing the 
fish. Last season, owing to poor fishing in Nor- 
way, they were of much greater value than 
usual. 

The meager compensation for this hard work 
and anxiety due to ever uncertain results, av- 
erages from two dollars and a half to three dol- 
lars a quintal, which is equivalent to one hundred 
and twelve pounds. A smart girl earns from 
thirty to forty dollars for a season covering 
from four to five months. Working hours are 
long, and when the catch is one of plenty, all 
hands must toil both day and night until the 
fish is in salt. The men generally work on 



114 Letters from Labrador 

shares, the "planter" taking half; the other 
half is divided among the crews fishing one 
trawl or trap, a few dollars on a hundred quin- 
tal being allowed the skipper of the crew. 

The inhabitants of Newfoundland, who come 
to this shore to fish, leave their homes late in 
May or early in June. They number from 
twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand people. 
Those who make one point their station, like the 
families we were calling on, are frequently not 
the owners of a schooner. They are brought to 
their fishing grounds either by a steamer or on 
some friend's schooner. Sometimes a hundred 
souls, — men, women and children with their 
goats, pigs and chickens will be crowded into 
one small schooner of from thirty to forty tons. 
The suffering of all, but of the women and chil- 
dren in particular, is beyond the power of words 
to tell. In rough weather the hatches are bat- 
tened and all must endure the horrors of close 
confinement in a dark, evil smelling hole, packed 
almost to suffocation. Many of the females are 
young, unmarried girls. The too frequent sequel 
to such surroundings for the unfortunate creat- 
ures may better be imagined than described. I 
am told of late years, however, conditions have 
shown improvement. 



Letters from Labrador 115 

Arriving at their destination in a season tliat 
is early spring in Labrador, they iind their 
"tilts" full of snow and ice. ''With our picks 
and shovels," said the man, "we heave out most 
of it, heave in the bed and blankets and are 
tired enough to go to sleep. In time what we 
don't heave out melts and runs off." Think of 
sleeping in such quarters ! But there are seldom 
serious results. "How can there be," continued 
our friend, "in Labrador air?" 

Another system of fishing is to move at will 
on a schooner, stopping where fish can be found ; 
moving as the catch wanes, to more plenteous 
spots, until the hold is full, when the schooner's 
prow is turned for home, like those then resting 
in the harbor. Labrador fish are small compared 
to those taken on the Grand Banks of Newfound- 
land, which measure from eighteen to thirty 
inches, and are not considered as good. The 
enormous demand, nevertheless, that comes from 
Brazil, India and all warm countries, gives a 
market to cod not often over-supplied. 

In October the great freight steamers come up 
from the St. John's merchants and buy the 
summer's catch, giving orders on the different 
houses in exchange for the fish. Most of these 
firms deal in general supplies, enabling the fish- 



116 Letters from Labrador 

erman to obtain his winter outfit of whatever 
nature to the amount his order calls for. Too 
often he is already in their debt for nets and 
supplies ; therefore it is rare his fingers close on 
any hard cash, St. John's merchants average to 
do a business annually, in cod alone, of over 
seven million doUars. Our fishing schooners 
from Gloucester that visit the Grand Banks are 
the wonder and admiration of every Newfound- 
lander who has the good luck to visit one; and 
the food the American fisherman is provided 
seems epicurean to these poor folks. Our ac- 
quaintances returned our call one evening on 
the schooner. The Newfoundlander is fond of 
calling, but seems to prefer visits to calls of 
ceremony. The festive cup of tea is always 
served, and when the host is able he gives his 
male friends West India rum. The average 
islander is fond of his noggin of rum, and the 
city of St. John's presents more unutterably de- 
pressing spectacles of bestial indulgence than any 
city I ever visited ; but some are teetotallers. 

The fisherman's friend and counselor, Dr. 
Grenfell, does not admit the word temperance 
to his vocabulary ; he stands for teetotalism only, 
and preaches it along the coast to good advan- 
tage. Moreover, in his capacity of magistrate 



Letters from Labrador 117 

on Labrador, he pursues the itinerant grog pur- 
veyor from rock to rock. I received a pleasant 
letter from the doctor yesterday. It was mailed 
from the hospital at St. Anthony, North East 
Newfoundland, February sixth. The closing 
passages read as follows : 

''We are in a funny muddle here. The hos- 
pital full of carpenters and shavings, still. But 
I have a splendid dog team, — seventeen fine dogs 
— and as the winter is exceptionally cold, and 
the sea frozen everywhere, I am living largely 
on the komatik (sledge), travelling on my 
rounds. If Mrs. D. and your daughter could 
only put in this week down here, they would 
enjoy some of the best fun in the world, and the 
best atmosphere ever breathed. 

"With kind regards, 

"Yours faithfully, 

"Wilfred Grenfell." 



APR 9 1908 



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